Scottish surnames, 2024
Random last name generator
Every surname on this page comes from the National Records of Scotland surname list for 2024, which lists 2,099 surnames that occurred at least ten times in the year's birth, marriage and death registers. The five most common are Smith (1,832), Brown (1,289), Wilson (1,179), Robertson (1,054), Stewart (1,052). The generator draws a surname in proportion to how often it appears, so common surnames come up far more often than rare ones. The list used by the generator holds the 1,575 most frequent surnames, which together cover 95% of the surnames in the source file.
More options — middle names, no repeats, realism, seed
1 gives real frequencies. 0 makes every name equally likely.
What the data says
- The 10 most common surnames make up 9.2% of the listed entries, about 1 in 11 register entries.
- 1.57% of the listed entries is Smith, the most common surname in the list.
- Counting every surname in the file equally, the distribution behaves like 960 equally common surnames (effective number, exp of Shannon entropy).
- The average surname is 6.4 letters long, weighted by how often it appears.
Top 20 surnames
| # | Surname | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Smith | 1,832 | 1.57% |
| 2 | Brown | 1,289 | 1.10% |
| 3 | Wilson | 1,179 | 1.01% |
| 4 | Robertson | 1,054 | 0.90% |
| 5 | Stewart | 1,052 | 0.90% |
| 6 | Campbell | 1,017 | 0.87% |
| 7 | Thomson | 988 | 0.84% |
| 8 | Anderson | 925 | 0.79% |
| 9 | Murray | 748 | 0.64% |
| 10 | Scott | 737 | 0.63% |
| 11 | Reid | 730 | 0.62% |
| 12 | Taylor | 724 | 0.62% |
| 13 | Macdonald | 702 | 0.60% |
| 14 | Clark | 611 | 0.52% |
| 15 | Young | 588 | 0.50% |
| 16 | Mitchell | 568 | 0.49% |
| 17 | Walker | 567 | 0.48% |
| 18 | Ross | 551 | 0.47% |
| 19 | Morrison | 539 | 0.46% |
| 20 | Watson | 539 | 0.46% |
Questions and answers
What is the most common last name in Scotland?
Smith. The National Records of Scotland surname list for 2024 lists 1,832 register entries with this surname, 1.57% of the listed entries.
How much of the list do the 10 most common surnames take up?
About 9.2% of the listed entries, about 1 in 11 register entries, is one of the 10 most common surnames in the National Records of Scotland surname list for 2024.
How many different surnames are in the data?
The National Records of Scotland surname list for 2024 lists 2,099 surnames that occurred at least ten times in the year's birth, marriage and death registers.
How long is the average surname?
Weighted by how often each one appears, the average is 6.4 letters.