Sangster
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Scottish variant of Sanger (i), from Old English sangere ‘singer’ or a nickname for someone always singing
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈsæŋstɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sangster is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 44K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 48K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 52K
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)
- Sources
- 274 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 32K (inferred from the name graph)
2,702 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Scottish variant of Sanger (i), from Old English sangere ‘singer’ or a nickname for someone always singing.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sangster 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 | 2,702 | 1 in 123K | 2.7K | Sangster | 274 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 48K | 1.3K | Sangster | 147 |
| CA Canada | ≈860 est. | ≈1 in 44K | — | Sangster | 109 |
| AU Australia | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Sangster | 89 |
| AT Austria | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Sangster | 6 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Sangster | 37 |
| JM Jamaica | ≈71 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Sangster | 6 |
| GY Guyana | 19 | 1 in 39K | 19 | — | 1 |
2,702 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); 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)
Sangster 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.
In English, from OE sangestre, feminine of sangere, 'chorister'; first attested Sibilla Sangistere 1327 MEOT (Ha).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A surname originating as an occupation for a singer.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Charles Sangsterb. 1822CACanadian writer (1822–1893)
- Margaret Elizabeth Sangsterb. 1838USAmerican poet, author, journalist, editor 1838-1912
- Donald Sangsterb. 1911JMJamaican politician (1911-1967)
- David F. Sangsterb. 1924AUresearch chemist
- Jimmy Sangsterb. 1927GBscreenwriter (1927–2011)
- John Sangsterb. 1928AUAustralian musician (1928-1995)
- Robert Sangsterb. 1936GBBritish businessman (1936-2004)
- Mike Sangsterb. 1940GBBritish tennis player (1940–1985)
- George Sangsterb. 1970NLDutch ornithologist
- Thomas Brodie-Sangsterb. 1990GBEnglish actor
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 22 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.7K | #11,612 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.6K | #11,032 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.5K | #11,823 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 1.3K | #5,376 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 19 | #606 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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 Sangster mean, and where does it come from?
- Scottish variant of Sanger (i), from Old English sangere ‘singer’ or a nickname for someone always singing. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Sangster?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsæŋstɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Sangster have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.7 thousand people named Sangster, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sangster.
- How common is the name Sangster?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,702 people named Sangster in 2010, about 1 in 123 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Sangster?
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/sangsterThe 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, “Sangster”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.