McAlister

surname · Latin script

Meaning: A surname from Scottish Gaelic

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/məˈkæɫəstɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

McAlister is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Liberia it is the 75th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 17K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 29K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 29K

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.

United States (measured from records)

11,665 people, 2010

Sources
405 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 5.3K (inferred from the name graph)

Liberia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

A surname from Scottish Gaelic.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

McAlister 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.

Where McAlister is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—11,6651 in 29K12KMcAlister405
PK Pakistan—≈5,000 est.≈1 in 47K—McAlister1
GB United Kingdom—≈2,300 est.≈1 in 29K—McAlister145
KE Kenya—≈2,300 est.≈1 in 23K—McAlister1
AU Australia—≈1,500 est.≈1 in 17K—McAlister150
LR Liberia#75≈950 est.≈1 in 5.3K—McAlister1
NZ New Zealand—≈270 est.≈1 in 18K—McAlister49

11,665 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

McAlister is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Mc-Alister

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written McA-Lister

40 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Peter McAlister, b. 1869Hill McAlister, b. 1875Clark McAlister, b. 1946David McAlister, b. 1951Michael J. McAlister, b. 1954Jim McAlister, b. 1957Chris McAlister, b. 1977Luke McAlister, b. 1983Kayla McAlister, b. 1988Brodie McAlister, b. 1997

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)

FormalDear Mcalister,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 16 sources across 6 countries.

Official registers attesting McAlister
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201012K#3,078
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200011K#2,883
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202011K#3,214
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • 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 McAlister mean, and where does it come from?
A surname from Scottish Gaelic. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce McAlister?
A machine transcription gives /məˈkæɫəstɝ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does McAlister have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 12 thousand people named McAlister, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mcalister.
How common is the name McAlister?
In the United States, the national register counted 11,665 people named McAlister in 2010, about 1 in 29 thousand residents.
How common is McAlister compared with other names?
In Liberia, McAlister is the 75th most common surname of 10,200 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about McAlister?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mcalister

The 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, “McAlister” — the 75th most common surname in Liberia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how McAlister parses inside a full name →