Reid
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) medieval nickname for a red-haired or ruddy-faced person, from Middle English read ‘red’; (ii) ‘person who lives in a woodland clearing’; (iii) ‘person from Read’, Lancashire, ‘headland frequented
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹiːd/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Reid is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 18th most common surname.
- JMJamaica≈1 in 499(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 989as Reed
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.2Kas Reed
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 Reid 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)
- #195 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 606 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 499 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,400,000 named Reed, est.
of 19M surnames
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:
Locally spelled Reed in US United States, GB United Kingdom, IT Italy and 3 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)
(i) medieval nickname for a red-haired or ruddy-faced person, from Middle English read ‘red’; (ii) ‘person who lives in a woodland clearing’; (iii) ‘person from Read’, Lancashire, ‘headland frequented by female roe deer’
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)
Reid 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 | — | ≈1,400,000 est. | ≈1 in 989 | — | Reed | 34 |
| US United States | #36 | 277,030as Reed | 1 in 1.2K | 277K | Reed | 606 |
| GB United Kingdom | #25 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 37K | Reed | 319 |
| EG Egypt | #674 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Reed | 32 |
| IT Italy | #49 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | 2 | Reed | 51 |
| JM Jamaica | #18 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 499 | — | Reid | 62 |
| IE Ireland | #31 | ≈4,400 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Reed | 115 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,357 | 1 in 156K | 1.4K | — | 3 |
| GY Guyana | — | 726 | 1 in 1K | 726 | — | 12 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Reid 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, Descriptive surname from Old English/Scots ‘red’ (pronounced reed); early form Gilbert le Rede of Coul, 1296. Also Scotticised Gaelic ruadh ‘red’.
as a nameScottish Surnames
Transferred use of Scottish and Northern English surname, in origin as a nickname for someone with red hair ora ruddy complexion (from Old English réad ‘red’, cf. Read).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Kate, British actress
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, red-haired
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Scottish and N. English: transferred use of the surname, which originated as a nickname for someone with red hair or a ruddy complexion (from Old English r ad red; cf. READ ).
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)
- George Reidb. 1845GBAustralian politician, 4th Prime Minister of Australia and 12th Premier of New South Wales (1845-1918)
- Frances Reidb. 1914USAmerican actress (1914-2010)
- Elliott Reidb. 1920USAmerican film and television actor (1920-2013)
- Harry Reidb. 1939USAmerican politician (1939–2021)
- Kerry Reidb. 1947AUAustralian tennis player
- Peter Reidb. 1956GBEnglish footballer, manager, and pundit
- Tara Reidb. 1975USAmerican actress (born 1975)
- Sam Reidb. 1987AUAustralian actor
- Riley Reidb. 1991USAmerican pornographic actress (born 1991)
- Storm Reidb. 2003USAmerican 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 80 sources across 43 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 111K | #275 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 109K | #281 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 104K | #263 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.4K | #6,976 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 726 | #146 |
Reference works 8
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Reid mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) medieval nickname for a red-haired or ruddy-faced person, from Middle English read ‘red’; (ii) ‘person who lives in a woodland clearing’; (iii) ‘person from Read’, Lancashire, ‘headland frequented… Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Reid have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.4 million people named Reed in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How do you pronounce Reid?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹiːd/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Reid?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 1,357 people named Reid, about 1 in 156 thousand residents.
- How common is Reid compared with other names?
- In Jamaica, Reid is the 18th most common surname of 50,451 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Reid?
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/reidThe 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, “Reid” — the 18th most common surname in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.