Key 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 commonly occurring surnames in our registers in 2025 have ranked high for all years data is available.
The top three surnames in our registers, 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 2025 have also been present in the top 20, or very close to, for every year that data exists. Within the top 20, Thomson increased by the most occurrences compared to the previous year with 45 more occurrences in 2025 than in 2024, going from 7th to 4th place. Robertson saw the largest decrease in occurrences compared to the previous year (-96), going from 4th to 7th place.
The following table shows the top 20 surnames in our birth, marriage, and death registers in 2025.
| Rank |
Surname |
Occurrences in 2025 |
| 1 |
Smith |
1827 |
| 2 |
Brown |
1248 |
| 3 |
Wilson |
1205 |
| 4 |
Thomson |
1033 |
| 5 |
Campbell |
1027 |
| 6 |
Stewart |
991 |
| 7 |
Robertson |
958 |
| 8 |
Anderson |
942 |
| 9 |
Taylor |
751 |
| 10 |
Murray |
736 |
| 11 |
Scott |
711 |
| 12 |
Macdonald |
700 |
| 13 |
Reid |
685 |
| 14 |
Clark |
653 |
| 15 |
Walker |
611 |
| 16 |
Mitchell |
602 |
| 17 |
Young |
579 |
| 18= |
Ross |
570 |
| 18= |
Watson |
570 |
| 20 |
Morrison |
560 |
Despite the top names keeping their high ranks over the years, they have all decreased in occurrences since 1975. Compared to 1975, in 2025 there were 892 fewer occurrences of Smith, 722 fewer occurrences for Brown, and 681 fewer occurrences for Wilson between 1975 and 2025. Similarly, the decrease in occurrences since 2000 has been 377, 219, and 233 for these top 3 names, respectively.
The names which have risen most since 1975 and 2000 reflect Scotland’s growing diversity. Khan was the name with the largest rise in occurrences from 1975 to 2025, going from 17 occurrences in 1975 to 184 in 2025. The name also had the largest rise in occurrences from 2000-2025, with annual occurrences rising by 123 from 61 in 2000.
Ali was the joint 900th most common name in birth, marriage and death registers in 1975, but rose to joint 108th most common in 2025.
Other names that rose by 50 or more occurrences between 1975 and 2025 were Singh ( +119 occurrences), Ahmed (+118), Jones (+83), Kaur (+79), Hussain (+64), Ahmad (+62), and Nguyen (+55).
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 members of each couple being married 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 this is not an exhaustive list of surnames of every individual currently living in Scotland, only those who appear on our birth, marriage, and death registers. Some key considerations following on from this are that these figures:
- include the surnames of non-residents who were born / married / died here;
- exclude the surnames of residents who were born / married / died elsewhere; and
- do not represent all age groups equally, as some age groups have very low birth, marriage and death rates, whereas others account for most births, marriages and deaths.
