Main Points
Smith continued to be the most common surname in Scotland’s birth, marriage and death registers, which has been the case for every year that data exists for.
The top 20 most common surnames in 2024 have ranked high for all years data is available, however, the occurrences of each name has decreased since 1975. Names such as Ali, Khan, Singh and Ahmed have steadily grown in popularity since 2020, reflecting Scotland’s growing diversity.
The top three surnames, Smith, Brown and Wilson, have been in the top three for every year that data exists. However, the number of occurrences for each name has seen an overall downward trend. The rest of the names in top 20 in 2024 have also been present in the top 20, or very close to, for every year that data exists.
The following table shows the top 20 surnames in 2024.
| Rank |
Surname |
Occurrences in 2024 |
| 1 |
Smith |
1,832 |
| 2 |
Brown |
1,289 |
| 3 |
Wilson |
1,179 |
| 4 |
Robertson |
1,054 |
| 5 |
Stewart |
1,052 |
| 6 |
Campbell |
1,017 |
| 7 |
Thomson |
988 |
| 8 |
Anderson |
925 |
| 9 |
Murray |
748 |
| 10 |
Scott |
737 |
| 11 |
Reid |
730 |
| 12 |
Taylor |
724 |
| 13 |
Macdonald |
702 |
| 14 |
Clark |
611 |
| 15 |
Young |
588 |
| 16 |
Mitchell |
568 |
| 17 |
Walker |
567 |
| 18 |
Ross |
551 |
| 19 |
Morrison |
539 |
| 20 |
Watson |
539 |
Despite the top names keeping their high ranks over the years, they have all decreased in occurrences since 1975. The top three names have decreased by 887 occurrences for Smith, 681 occurrences for Brown, and 707 occurrences for Wilson between 1975 and 2024. Similarly, the decrease in occurrences since 2000 has been 372, 178, and 259 for the top 3 names respectively.
The names which have risen most since 1975 and 2000 reflect Scotland’s growing diversity. Khan was the fastest rising name from 1975 to 2024, going from 17 occurrences in 1975 to 160 in 2024. The name was also fastest rising from 2000-2024, with occurrences rising from 61 in 2000.
Ali was the joint 900th most common name in birth, marriage and death registers in 1975, but rose to 112th most common in 2024.
Other names that rose by 50 or more occurrences between 1975 and 2024 were Ahmed, Singh, Kaur, Jones, Davies, Hussain, and Ahmad.
Background
Each year’s list was prepared by counting the surname of each child in that year’s register of births, the surnames of both parties (for example the bride and the groom) in the register of marriages, and the surname of the deceased in the register of deaths. Different spellings, for example McDonald and MacDonald, were counted separately. Names with the same spelling but different capitalisation were counted as the same surname, for example Macdonald and MacDonald. Surnames which occurred at least ten times across the births, marriages and deaths registers during a year were included in the that year’s list. Surnames which occurred less often in a year are not shown in its list.
The surnames from the birth, marriage and death registers may not be
representative of the surnames of the population of Scotland as a whole, as:
- they include the surnames of non-residents who were born / married / died here;
- they exclude the surnames of residents who were born / married / died elsewhere; and
- some age-groups have very low birth, marriage and death rates, whereas others account for most births, marriages and deaths.
