# Mearns (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/mearns/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname from Scottish Gaelic.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | Scottish Gaelic |
| Type | occupational, named after the work an ancestor did |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 457 |
| US rank (2010) | 46,568 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 675,592 people |
| Change since 2000 | -16.6% (548 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

Scottish habitational surname for someone coming from The Mearns, an alternative name for Kincardineshire, which is named as An Mhaoirne in Scottish Gaelic, from maor (“bailiff, steward, beadle”). According to Taylor (2006), perhaps ultimately from Pictish (cf. Welsh maeroni (“the office or district of a steward”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Mearns in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 97% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 1.8% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.0% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Mearns in the United States.

## People named Mearns

- Edgar Alexander Mearns, American ornithologist and field naturalist (1856-1916)

## Similar surnames

Marines, Marinas, Morones, Marinez, Morency, Mooring, Marenco, Moring, Maring, Mehring.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.