Greer
loc · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Greer is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Lesotho it is the 15th most common surname. Recorded meaning: Transferred use of the Scottish surname, which originated in the Middle Ages from a contracted form of }Gregor.
- USUnited States1 in 5.8K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 6.8K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7.5K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Greer itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 477 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈140,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Lesotho, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Grier in GB United Kingdom, CA Canada, IE Ireland and 4 more.
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)
Transferred use of the Scottish surname, which originated in the Middle Ages from a contracted form of }Gregor. It has _ become known as a girl’s name in the GREVILLE English-speaking world through the fame of the actress Greer Garson (b. 1908), whose mother’s maiden name it was. Variant: Grier,
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Greer 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Greer | 15 |
| US United States | — | 57,043 | 1 in 5.8K | 57K | Greer | 477 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Grier | 3 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈8,800 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | 3 | Grier | 192 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 6.8K | 1 | Grier | 176 |
| LS Lesotho | #15 | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Grier | 3 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈800 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | — | Grier | 56 |
| GA Gabon | #559 | ≈470 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | — | Grier | 3 |
| NC New Caledonia | #408 | ≈86 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Grier | 4 |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)
Greer 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.
In English, A patronymic Scottish surname from Scots Gregor (“Gregory”).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Hershel, Stadium, Nashville, TN
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, possibly Scottish; gloss unclear in OCR
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Irish, This is a variant of the Scottish MacGregor, Mac Grioghar, numerous in north Ulster since the time of the Plantation of Ulster. MIF
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
Scottish and English: from the Scottish surname, which originated in the Middle Ages from a contracted form of GREGOR . It has become known as a female name in the English-speaking world through the fame of the actress Greer Garson (b. 1908), whose mother's maiden name it was. Variant: Grier .
as a word
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)
- Greer Garsonb. 1904GBBritish-American actress (1904-1996)
- Dabbs Greerb. 1917USAmerican actor (1917−2007)
- Jane Greerb. 1924USAmerican actress (1924–2001)
- Hal Greerb. 1936USAmerican basketball player (1936–2018)
- Germaine Greerb. 1939AUAustralian writer and public intellectual (born 1939)
- Debbie Stabenowb. 1950USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (born 1950)
- Steven M. Greerb. 1955USAmerican ufologist
- Andrew Sean Greerb. 1970USAmerican novelist and short story writer
- Judy Greerb. 1975USAmerican actress
- Greer Grammerb. 1992USAmerican actress
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 47 sources across 28 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 57K | #590 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 55K | #596 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 55K | #552 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname 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
- What does the name Greer mean, and where does it come from?
- Transferred use of the Scottish surname, which originated in the Middle Ages from a contracted form of }Gregor. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- How common is the name Greer?
- In the United States, the national register counted 57,043 people named Greer in 2010, about 1 in 5.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Greer compared with other names?
- In Lesotho, Greer is the 15th most common surname of 5,753 surnames recorded there.
- In which country does Greer have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 136 thousand people named Greer in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled greer.
What do you want to know about Greer?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/greerThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Greer” — the 15th most common surname in Lesotho. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.