Swales
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈsweɪɫz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Swales is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Habitational surname, from the River Swale in Yorkshire.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 33K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 371K
- PTPortugal≈1 in 104K
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 Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 203 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 33K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Habitational surname, from the River Swale in Yorkshire.
Sources 2
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wiktionary
Where in the world(measured from records)
Swales 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 33K | 4K | Swales | 160 |
| US United States | 896 | 1 in 371K | 896 | Swales | 203 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 205K | — | Swales | 28 |
| AU Australia | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 108K | — | Swales | 71 |
| CA Canada | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 174K | — | Swales | 55 |
| PT Portugal | ≈99 est. | ≈1 in 104K | — | Swales | 3 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈43 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | Swales | 16 |
| GD Grenada | 1 | 1 in 113K | 1 | — | — |
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); Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Dorothy E. Swalesb. 1901CACanadian herbarium curator, botanist and botanical collector (1901-2001)
- John Swalesb. 1938USBritish linguist
- Ian Swalesb. 1953GBBritish politician (born 1953)
- Steve Swalesb. 1973GBEnglish footballer (born 1973)
- Oliver Swalesb. 1989IMManx cricketer
- Kim SwalesGBBritish economist
- Morgan Swalesfigure skater
- Jason SwalesAUAustralian businessperson
- Penelope SwalesAUAustralian singer
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 18 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 4K | #1,971 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 896 | #27,042 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 869 | #29,059 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 800 | #28,166 |
| GD Grenada | Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025 | 2025 | 1 | #222 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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 Swales mean, and where does it come from?
- Habitational surname, from the River Swale in Yorkshire. Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland and Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Swales?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsweɪɫz/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Swales have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.0 thousand people named Swales in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled swales.
- How common is the name Swales?
- In the United States, the national register counted 896 people named Swales in 2010, about 1 in 371 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Swales?
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/swalesThe 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, “Swales”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.