Grierson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: son of Gregor; first attested Gilbert Greresoun 1411 Black
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 11 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ɣɾjeɾson/(machine-generated) Spanish · model-generated
Grierson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 46K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 50K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 51Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 220 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 46K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,500 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)son of Gregor; first attested Gilbert Greresoun 1411 Black
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Where in the world
(measured from records)Grierson 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Grierson | 154 |
| US United States | 740 | 1 in 450K | 924 | Grierson | 220 |
| AU Australia | ≈540 est. | ≈1 in 50K | — | Grierson | 93 |
| CA Canada | ≈420 est. | ≈1 in 98K | — | Grierson | 106 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 299K | — | Grierson | 22 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 51K | — | Grierson | 36 |
| UY Uruguay | 23 | 1 in 147K | 23 | — | — |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)Grierson is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
patronymic from Grier. FOREBEARSJA Scottish family by the name of Grierson claim descent from Gilbert, son of Malcolm MacGregor (died 1374), 11th Lord of MacGregor. Gilbert was known as both MacGregor and Gregorson. In 1400 he was granted lands by the Earl of March in the name Grierson. The numerous northern Irish bearers of the name Greer claim descent from this same Gilbert.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Irish, A branch of the Scottish clan MacGregor. Bibl
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)- Benjamin Griersonb. 1826USUnion Army General (1826-1911)
- Francis Griersonb. 1848USAmerican musician (1848-1927)
- George Abraham Griersonb. 1851IEIrish linguistic scholar and civil servant (1851–1941)
- Cecilia Griersonb. 1859ARArgentine physician (1859-1934)
- James Griersonb. 1859FRBritish Army general (1859-1914)
- Robert Griersonb. 1868CACanadian medical doctor and Presbyterian missionary
- John Griersonb. 1898GBScottish documentary pioneer (1898–1972)
- John Griersonb. 1909GBEnglish long-distance flier and author
- Philip Griersonb. 1910GBBritish academic and numismatist (1910–2006)
- Alister Griersonb. 1969AUAustralian film director
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)Evidence
(measured from records)19 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 924 | #27,616 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 740 | #31,329 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 686 | #31,817 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 23 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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 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 Grierson mean, and where does it come from?
- son of Gregor; first attested Gilbert Greresoun 1411 Black Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Grierson?
- In Spanish /ɣɾjeɾson/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- In which country does Grierson have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 thousand people named Grierson in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled grierson.
- How common is the name Grierson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 740 people named Grierson in 2010, about 1 in 450 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Grierson?
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/griersonThe 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, “Grierson”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.