McCowen

surname · Latin script

Meaning: A surname from Scottish Gaelic

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

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

McCowen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 415K(measured from records)
  • LRLiberia≈1 in 135K
  • IEIreland≈1 in 235K

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)

801 people, 2010

Sources
210 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 135K (inferred from the name graph)

Liberia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

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)

McCowen 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 McCowen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States8011 in 415K936McCowen210
IT Italy≈190 est.≈1 in 324K—McCowen3
GB United Kingdom≈160 est.≈1 in 411K—McCowen61
CA Canada≈110 est.≈1 in 359K—McCowen12
AU Australia≈93 est.≈1 in 274K—McCowen45
LR Liberia≈38 est.≈1 in 135K—McCowen1
IE Ireland≈22 est.≈1 in 235K—McCowen19

801 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling mccowen. 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. 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)

McCowen is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Mc-Cowen

37 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)

1800185019001950Jennie McCowen, b. 1845Edward Oscar McCowen, b. 1877Donald McCowen, b. 1908Alec McCowen, b. 1925Bill McCowen, b. 1937

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 Mccowen,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 9 sources across 2 countries.

Official registers attesting McCowen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020936#27,300
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000864#26,538
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010801#29,473
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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 McCowen mean, and where does it come from?
A surname from Scottish Gaelic. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce McCowen?
A machine transcription gives /məˈkaʊən/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does McCowen have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 801 people named McCowen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled McCowen.
How common is the name McCowen?
In the United States, the national register counted 801 people named McCowen in 2010, about 1 in 415 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about McCowen?

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

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, “McCowen”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how McCowen parses inside a full name →