Scales
surname · Latin script
Meaning: probably from Escalles (Pas-de-Calais); first attested Hugh de Scalariis 1195 P (C) (A Dictionary of English Surnames)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 12 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/skeɪlz/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Scales is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 13,190 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2010.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 21K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 25K
- USUnited States1 in 25K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 382 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
13,190 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
San Marino, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Scales
- English:/skeɪlz/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)probably from Escalles (Pas-de-Calais); first attested Hugh de Scalariis 1195 P (C)
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Where the surname Scales is found
(measured from records)Scales 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 | 13,190 | 1 in 25K | 13K | Scales | 382 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 21K | 3.4K | Scales | 174 |
| CA Canada | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 35K | — | Scales | 93 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Scales | 92 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 67K | — | Scales | 6 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Scales | 30 |
| SM San Marino | ≈2 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Scales | 1 |
13,190 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). 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)Scales 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, a different form of Scholes.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In Irish, This is not a toponymic but a locative name (meaning dweller at the huts) of Anglo-Norman origin, in Co. Limerick since the fourteenth century, and still found in Co. Clare. Schoales, found in south Ulster, is a variant
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)- Alfred Moore Scalesb. 1827USConfederate Army general (1827-1892)
- Prunella Scalesb. 1932GBBritish actress (1932–2025)
- John Scalesb. 1966GBEnglish association football player
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)21 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 12 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Scales mean, and where does it come from?
- probably from Escalles (Pas-de-Calais); first attested Hugh de Scalariis 1195 P (C) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Scales?
- In English /skeɪlz/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Scales?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 13 thousand people named Scales, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled scales. After it come United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Malaysia; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Scales?
- In the United States, the national register counted 13,190 people named Scales in 2010, about 1 in 25 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Scales?
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/scalesThe 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, “Scales” — ranked 2649th in the United States (Census Bureau, 2010). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.