McAlpine
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
McAlpine is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: from Scottish and Irish Gaelic, ‘son of Ailpean’; personal name perhaps from alp ‘lump’.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 24K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 32K
- CACanada≈1 in 43K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 302 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)
≈26,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Cape Verde, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Scottish and Irish Gaelic, ‘son of Ailpean’; personal name perhaps from alp ‘lump’.
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)
McAlpine 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | McAlpine | 3 |
| US United States | 3,714 | 1 in 90K | 3.7K | McAlpine | 302 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | McAlpine | 162 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | McAlpine | 134 |
| CA Canada | ≈880 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | McAlpine | 143 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | McAlpine | 68 |
| CV Cape Verde | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | McAlpine | 2 |
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. 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)
McAlpine is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Ailpein (Scottish), Mac Ailpin (Irish) ‘son of Ailpean’, a personal name of uncertain etymology, possibly derived from alp ‘lump’. The personal name was borne by Pictish kings, one of whom, Kenneth, son of Ailpin, Ailpean, became the ruler of the united Piets and Scots and is regarded as the founder of the somewhat disparate clan of this name.
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)
- Sir Robert McAlpine, 1st Baronetb. 1847GBBritish construction firm founder (1847-1934)
- Kenneth McAlpineb. 1920GBracecar driver (1920 – 2023)
- Donald McAlpineb. 1934AUAustralian cinematographer
- Sir William McAlpine, 6th Baronetb. 1936GBBritish businessman (1936–2018)
- Alistair McAlpine, Baron McAlpine of West Greenb. 1942GBBritish businessman, politician and author (1942-2014)
- Andrew McAlpineb. 1948NZproduction designer
- Hamish McAlpineb. 1948GBScottish footballer
- Stephen McAlpineb. 1949USAmerican lawyer and politician
- Jennie McAlpineb. 1984GBBritish actress
- Lizzy McAlpineb. 1999USAmerican singer-songwriter
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 12 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.7K | #8,814 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.7K | #8,540 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.6K | #8,437 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 McAlpine mean, and where does it come from?
- from Scottish and Irish Gaelic, ‘son of Ailpean’; personal name perhaps from alp ‘lump’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does McAlpine have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 26 thousand people named McAlpine in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mcalpine.
- How common is the name McAlpine?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,714 people named McAlpine in 2010, about 1 in 90 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about McAlpine?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mcalpineThe 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, “McAlpine”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.