Watson is the 19th Most Common Surname in Scotland
Investigating and analysing some of the data around the Watson name in Scotland.
Whilst setting up the Clan Watson Wikipedia page, I included the stat from the National Records of Scotland website that as of 2021 “Watson” is the 19th most common Surname in Scotland.
NRoS have charted how common the various surnames are in Scotland since 1975 at various intervals. Generating it from Birth, Death and Marriage certificates in Scotland, and all of the data for this can be found here on their website.
The list of names is generated by counting the surnames of each child for births, of both parties (e.g. the bride and the groom) for marriages, and of the deceased for deaths. Different spellings are counted separately and surnames which occur fewer than ten times (in total) in any given year do not appear in the list for that year.
Data is provided for the years 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2013-2021.
Through this period “Watson” has featured on the list every year, and has maintained an average position of 17.7, with the highest position reached being 15 in both 2016 and 2019, and the lowest position reached being 21 in 2005.
Unsurprisingly “Smith” has held the top spot throughout the period of data provided and the three most popular surnames Smith; Brown; and Wilson, have not changed since 1975 according to the NRoS data.
Here is the Top 20 list from 2021:-
SMITH
BROWN
WILSON
STEWART
THOMSON
ROBERTSON
CAMPBELL
ANDERSON
MURRAY
SCOTT
TAYLOR
MACDONALD
REID
CLARK
MITCHELL
WALKER
YOUNG
ROSS
WATSON
MORRISON
To see the full list click here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/names/most-common-surnames
From the list we see that the Surname “Watson” is in good company. Stewart, Robertson, Murray, MacDonald, Ross… all Clans with lots of history and connections. Surprisingly however clans such as Buchanan and Forbes, of which many believe we are a sept and are closely related to, feature much further down the list with average positions over the years of 133.8 and 104 respectively.
Analysis of “Watson” on Scotland’s People
I took this a step further, and let the Data Analyst in me play a little.
A search for the surname “Watson” on Scotland’s People as of 16th December 2022, returns 601,785 records. 112,205 of which are Births, 83,513 are Deaths and 81,274 marriages.
I think it’s important at this point to recognise how lucky we are in Scotland to have a resource such as Scotland’s People. It really is world leading and without it, this type of analysis just wouldn’t be possible with this relative ease.
Over the course of a few days I extracted the data from Scotland’s People on the Births, Marriages and Deaths of those with the surname “Watson” for each year from 1855 when Statutory Registers begin in Scotland, to December 2022.
For marriages I also extracted how many were males with the surname Watson and therefore introducing their new wife into the family, with the remainder being female and therefore marrying out of the family. I appreciate there will be some errors in there with partners not always taking on the male’s name, and in more recent years same sex marriage and civil partnerships. However for this purpose those errors are deemed acceptable.
It is also impossible to tell on this scale the number of divorcees that kept the name “Watson” so divorces haven’t been included in this, and marriages that involve a Watson marrying another Watson, of which there has been 484 since 1855 also cause a small error in any calculation.
Finally, World War I and II means there are large scale numbers dying outside of the country and not going through the Statutory Registers in Scotland. This is particularly evident when the numbers are compared to the Census of 1921 where a drop of approximately 2k people is unaccounted for.
However errors aside, we are able to chart a rough growth trend for the Watson Surname in Scotland from 1855-2022. Starting with the 1851 Census figure for “Watson” of 13,578.
The chart shows huge growth of 87% between 1855 and 1914, the following 5 years are followed by a visible dip, representing the First World War. I believe this dip should in reality be larger, however I don’t have the data at present to demonstrate this.
Growth returns following the Great War to almost 27,000 at the start of World War II in 1939 at which point we see yet another dip which again I believe in reality should be much larger.
It makes complete sense for these two dips to exist, however I was surprised at just how visible and how pin point accurate they are to the start of the wars.
Sadly, from the start of the 70s, the Watson name has been in a steady and significant decline. With numbers now appearing to be well below pre-war figures and similar to that of the late 1800s.
This is likely due to migration patterns, more Watsons born in Scotland are moving out of the country to live elsewhere, whilst Foreign Nationals move to Scotland and diversify the Surnames being married into, and family sizes are now much smaller than they were even 2 or 3 generations ago.
Some interesting figures from Scotland’s People
Data from 1855 - 16th December 2022:-
There are 601,785 records for the surname search “Watson”
Since 1855 there as been 482 marriages both with the surname Watson
On average 373 Watsons get married in Scotland each year
There is an average of 30 divorces involving a Watson in Scotland each year
On average there are slightly more females marrying out of the Watson family than marrying into it
Watson distribution in 19th Century
Thanks to ScaledInnovation.com its possible to see a breakdown of distribution of the Watson surname using extensive data from the 1891 Census.
Lanark, Edinburgh, Angus, Aberdeen and Fife are all areas of prevalence within Scotland.
It’s also quite interesting to see the prevalence based on % of that particular county.
In Peebles for example, 1.3% of the county’s population were Watsons and it was the 8th most popular name in that area. In Fife, it was the 12th most popular, and in both Lanark and Edinburgh was 16th most popular.
Northumberland in the North East of England is clearly quite an interesting area for Watsons also where it was the 12th most popular name. In fact my own ancestors on my Father’s side moved there in the first half of the 1800s for work as a tin plater. Over a quarter of the Watsons living in this area by the time of the 1891 describe themselves as being from Scotland and we see similar results in the counties of Durham and North Yorkshire where the name is 8th, and 18th most common respectively.
I think there is much more that we can tell big picture wise from some statistical analysis of the data available on Scotland’s People and through some of the other sources available to us, a little time to organise my thoughts on this and we shall see where it takes us.