Hamish
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Scottish form of James, from Hebrew Ya‘aqov via Latin and Old French
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈhæmɪʃ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hamish is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Australia than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 3.8K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 18K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Australia (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 269 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,700 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- HebrewYa‘aqov(measured from records)
- Latinand(measured from records)
Scottish form of James, from Hebrew Ya‘aqov via Latin and Old French.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Hamish, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hamish counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU Australia | #531 | ≈6,700 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | 200 | Hamish | 213 |
| GB United Kingdom | #954 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 18K | 73 | Hamish | 240 |
| NZ New Zealand | #160 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 10 | Hamish | 163 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈720 est. | ≈1 in 78K | — | Hamish | 48 |
| US United States | — | 600 | 1 in 554K | 596 | Hamish | 269 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈48 est. | ≈1 in 129K | — | Hamish | 33 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Hamish is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Scottish: Anglicized spelling of the vocative case, Sheumais, of the Gaelic version of James. It is now sometimes chosen by families with no Scottish connections.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A male given name from Scottish Gaelic, of mostly Scottish usage.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Variante écossaise de James (anglais de Jacques) ; origine hébraïque.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, From the enclosed land
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Suplantador
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Hamish Stuartb. 1949GBScottish born British guitarist, bassist, singer, composer and record producer
- Hamish McCollb. 1962GBBritish actor
- Hamish Hardingb. 1964GBBritish businessman, astronaut, and pilot
- Hamish Hamiltonb. 1966GBBritish director
- Byron Blackb. 1969ZWnot in their usual nameZimbabwean tennis player
- Hamish Carterb. 1971NZNew Zealand Olympic triathlete
- Hamish Linklaterb. 1976USAmerican actor
- Hamish Blakeb. 1981AUAustralian comedian, actor, and author
- Hamish Bondb. 1986NZNew Zealand rower and cyclist (born 1986)
- Hamish Kerrb. 1996NZNew Zealand athletics competitor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 43 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 596 | #18,083 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2023 | 200 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2022 | 104 | #83 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2023 | 79 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 73 | #69 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 37 | #58 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2017 | 34 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2025 | 23 | #84 |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2025 | 23 | #84 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 14 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2024 | 10 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4 | #18,083 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you pronounce Hamish?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhæmɪʃ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Hamish a male or female name?
- Hamish is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Hamish mean, and where does it come from?
- Scottish form of James, from Hebrew Ya‘aqov via Latin and Old French. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- In which country does Hamish have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.7 thousand people named Hamish in Australia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hamish.
- How common is the name Hamish?
- In the United States, the national register counted 600 people named Hamish in 2020, about 1 in 554 thousand residents.
- How common is Hamish compared with other names?
- In Australia, Hamish is the 531st most common given name of 205,854 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hamish?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hamishThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Hamish” — the 531st most common given name in Australia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.