McCann

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

McCann is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Irish Gaelic, ‘son of Cana’, a nickname meaning literally ‘wolfcub’.

rarermore common
  • IEIreland≈1 in 3K(inferred from the name graph)
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 4.5K
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 5.3K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than McCann itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈130,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
478 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 3.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Ireland, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

McCannLatin(measured from records)
แม็คแคนThai(measured from records)

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)

From Irish Gaelic, ‘son of Cana’, a nickname meaning literally ‘wolfcub’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

McCann 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.

Where McCann is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈130,000 est.≈1 in 11K—McCann16
US United States#80635,4081 in 9.4K35KMcCann478
GB United Kingdom#410≈15,000 est.≈1 in 4.5KlistedMcCann255
CA Canada#649≈5,200 est.≈1 in 7.2K—McCann183
AU Australia#490≈4,800 est.≈1 in 5.3K—McCann191
IE Ireland#160≈1,700 est.≈1 in 3K—McCann124
HR Croatia—859as Macan1 in 4.9K859——

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; DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

McCann is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Mc-Cann

57 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

McCann is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • McChruiter see McWhirter from the byname Cana ‘Wolf Cub’. There has been con¬ siderable confusion with McGann. McClacher see Clachar Vars.: McCanna, (Mc)Canny; McAnn(a). McClaron see McLaren McCanon see Cannon McCara see McAra

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

  • from the byname Cana ‘Wolf Cub’. There has been con¬ siderable confusion with McGann. Vars.: McCanna, (Mc)Canny; McAnn(a).

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Cana ‘son of Cana', a personal name or byname meaning ‘wolf cub’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)

19201940196019802000Chuck McCann, b. 1934Sean McCann, b. 1935Les McCann, b. 1935Colum McCann, b. 1965Tim McCann, b. 1968Rory McCann, b. 1969Michael McCann, b. 1976Grant McCann, b. 1980Martin McCann, b. 1983Brian McCann, b. 1984

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 21 sources across 11 countries.

Reference works 4

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 McCann mean, and where does it come from?
From Irish Gaelic, ‘son of Cana’, a nickname meaning literally ‘wolfcub’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does McCann have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 127 thousand people named McCann in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mccann.
How common is the name McCann?
In the United States, the national register counted 35,408 people named McCann in 2010, about 1 in 9.4 thousand residents.
How common is McCann compared with other names?
In Ireland, McCann is the 160th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mccann

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “McCann” — the 160th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how McCann parses inside a full name →