McPherson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Scottish Gaelic Mac An Phearsain, ‘son of the parson’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/məkfɝsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
McPherson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 79th most common surname.
- JMJamaica≈1 in 2.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 4.1K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 5.2K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 480 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)
36,125 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Jamaica, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
from Scottish Gaelic Mac An Phearsain, ‘son of the parson’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
McPherson 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #674 | 36,125 | 1 in 9.2K | 36K | McPherson | 480 |
| GB United Kingdom | #406 | ≈9,400 est. | ≈1 in 7K | listed | McPherson | 231 |
| AU Australia | #245 | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | — | McPherson | 206 |
| CA Canada | #269 | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | — | McPherson | 196 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | McPherson | 6 |
| JM Jamaica | #79 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | McPherson | 25 |
| NZ New Zealand | #128 | ≈950 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | — | McPherson | 107 |
36,125 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
McPherson is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac an Phearsain ‘son of the parson’ (see Parsons). This is the surname of various ecclesiastical families in Aberdeenshire and Argyll; it is also established in northern Ireland.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A surname from Scottish Gaelic.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Aimee Semple, US evangelist;
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, James, Scottish poet
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- James B. McPhersonb. 1828UScareer officer of the United States Army (1828–1864)
- John R. McPhersonb. 1833USAmerican politician (1833-1897)
- Aimee Semple McPhersonb. 1890CACanadian-American evangelist and media celebrity (1890-1944)
- James M. McPhersonb. 1936USAmerican historian (born 1936)
- John McPhersonb. 1941USAmerican cinematographer (1941–2007)
- Patricia McPhersonb. 1954USAmerican actress
- Scott McPhersonb. 1959USAmerican playwright
- Conor McPhersonb. 1971IEIrish playwright and director (born 1971)
- Stephenie Ann McPhersonb. 1988JMJamaican sprinter
- Paige McPhersonb. 1990USAmerican taekwondo practitioner
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)
Attested in 29 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 36K | #965 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 35K | #979 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 35K | #913 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 McPherson mean, and where does it come from?
- from Scottish Gaelic Mac An Phearsain, ‘son of the parson’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce McPherson?
- A machine transcription gives /məkfɝsən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does McPherson have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 36 thousand people named McPherson, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mcpherson.
- How common is the name McPherson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 36,125 people named McPherson in 2010, about 1 in 9.2 thousand residents.
- How common is McPherson compared with other names?
- In the United States, McPherson is the 674th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about McPherson?
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/mcphersonThe 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, “McPherson” — the 674th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.