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Name Lineage

    The surname Gilliland

    An occupational surname, carried by 13,351 people in the United States.

    3 syllables Soundex G445

    Gilliland: #2,698 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Gilliland #2,698, 13,351 people Gilliland: #2,698 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Gilliland #2,698, 13,351 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Gilliland is more common than 98.3% of them.

    Origin

    Reduced Anglicized form of Scottish Gaelic Mac Gille Fhaoláin and Irish Mac Giolla Fhaoláin (“son of the servant of (saint) Faolán”), a personal name thought to be a diminutive of Irish faol (“wolf”). Compare the surname McClellan.

    Gilliland is an occupational surname: named after the work an ancestor did.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 13,351 people named Gilliland in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 23,125 Americans. That is up 1.4% since 2000, when the Census counted 13,170.

    #2,698
    rank among US surnames
    13,351
    people in 2010
    4.5
    per 100,000 Americans
    +1.4%
    change since 2000 (was #2,517)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #2,689Goetz13,39023,058
    #2,690Rhoads13,38923,060
    #2,691Bock13,38223,072
    #2,692Carrier13,37723,080
    #2,694William13,37323,087
    #2,695Asher13,37123,091
    #2,696Shell13,36923,094

    Who is named Gilliland

    Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census

    94% of people named Gilliland identified as white (not Hispanic), 2.1% as Hispanic or Latino (any race) and 1.8% as two or more races.

    • White (not Hispanic) 94%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.1%
    • Two or more races 1.8%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 1.2%
    • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.6%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.5%

    Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

    Famous Gillilands

    3 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

    • Richard Gilliland
      American actor (1950–2021)
    • Billy Gilliland
      Badminton player, born 1957
    • Arin Wright
      American soccer player, born 1992

    Notable Gillilands come mostly from the United States (2) and the United Kingdom (1).

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Variant spellings

    Surnames that sound like Gilliland

    Gilliland has the Soundex code G445, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code G445.

    Questions

    Where does the surname Gilliland come from?
    Reduced Anglicized form of Scottish Gaelic Mac Gille Fhaoláin and Irish Mac Giolla Fhaoláin (“son of the servant of (saint) Faolán”), a personal name thought to be a diminutive of Irish faol (“wolf”). Compare the surname McClellan.
    How common is the surname Gilliland?
    13,351 people in the United States had the surname Gilliland in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 23,125 Americans. It ranked 2,698th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Gilliland?
    In the 2010 Census, 94% of people named Gilliland identified as white (not Hispanic), and 2.1% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
    Who is the most famous person named Gilliland?
    Richard Gilliland, American actor (1950–2021), followed by Billy Gilliland.
    Where is the surname Gilliland most common?
    Wikidata records people named Gilliland in the United States and the United Kingdom.
    What type of surname is Gilliland?
    Gilliland is an occupational surname, named after the work an ancestor did.
    Is the surname Gilliland getting more or less common?
    More common. 13,170 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 13,351 in 2010, up 1.4%.
    What are other spellings of Gilliland?
    Gilleland.