Wardlaw
surname · Latin script
Meaning: person from a Scottish place name meaning 'lookout hill'
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈwɔɹdˌɫɔ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wardlaw is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
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)
person from a Scottish place name meaning 'lookout hill'.
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)
Wardlaw counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 3.3K | — |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 389 | — |
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)
Wardlaw 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 Wardlow, Derbyshire; first attested Henry de Wardlowe 1275
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A surname from Old English.
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)
- Walter Wardlawb. 1317GBCatholic cardinal
- Ralph Wardlawb. 1779GBScottish Presbyterian clergyman (1779-1853)
- Kim McLane Wardlawb. 1954USAmerican judge
- Joanna M. Wardlawb. 1958GBScottish physician and radiologist
- Felicity Wardlawb. 1977AUAustralian cyclist
- Iain Wardlawb. 1985GBEnglish county cricketer (born 1985)
- Charlotte Wardlawb. 2003GBScottish association football player (born 2003)
- Henry WardlawBishop of Saint Andrews
- Ire Wardlawactress
- Andrew WardlawGBresearcher
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 8 sources across 2 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.3K | #9,720 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.3K | #9,503 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.1K | #9,491 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 389 | #13,686 |
| 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 Wardlaw mean, and where does it come from?
- person from a Scottish place name meaning 'lookout hill'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Wardlaw?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwɔɹdˌɫɔ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Wardlaw have the most bearers?
- Wardlaw is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Wardlaw?
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/wardlawThe 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, “Wardlaw”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.