Ancesta specimen report
No. 00001
Gordon
Est. 1150
Uncommon
Version 2 · 1 new findings
The Name Sheet
Ancesta · The Name Sheet
No. 00001
Gordon
A hill above marshy ground — the topographic name of a place in the Berwickshire Merse, carried by the family that held it.
- Established
- 1150Berwickshire
- Name type
- Topographic
Rarity
88.4%
Bearers today
412,000
1 in
19,400
Also written as
- Gordoun
- Gordone
- Gordan
Most common in
- United States41.2%
- United Kingdom21.8%
- Jamaica8.4%
- Canada6.1%
ancesta.
Surname history research
Plate I
Meaning & etymology
What the name was built from, and which naming tradition it belongs to.
A hill above marshy ground — the topographic name of a place in the Berwickshire Merse, carried by the family that held it.
- Root language
- Old English, by way of Anglo-Norman Scots
- Name type
- Topographic
Topographic surnames name a place, not a person. Everyone living on or holding that ground could take it independently, which is why the name appears in unrelated households from the start.
gor
Old English
mud, wet ground, or a marshy hollow
dun
Old English
a hill, ridge, or upland pasture
Plate II
Origins
Where the name starts. Separate origins mean separate families — not one line.
- 01
Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
c. 1120 – 1300VerifiedThe parish of Gordon in the Merse gives the name its documented origin. Anglo-Norman settlers granted land there under David I appear in charters as 'de Gordun', a locative styling that hardens into a hereditary surname within three generations.
- 02
Strathbogie, Aberdeenshire
1408 onwardVerifiedA northern branch takes possession of Strathbogie after the forfeiture of the Earls of Buchan. The Aberdeenshire Gordons are a documented offshoot of the Berwickshire family rather than a separate origin, but the north is where the name becomes numerous.
- 03
Ulster plantation districts
1610 – 1700ProbableLowland Scots settlement carries the name into Down and Antrim. Ulster Gordons descend from several unrelated Scottish households moving in the same decades.
Three origins mean at least three separate families. A shared surname is not evidence of a shared ancestor.
Plate III
Earliest records
The first appearances we can date, as the clerk wrote them, with the document named.
1150
VerifiedRicher de Gordun
Berwickshire
Witness list, charter of Bishop Robert of St Andrews to Kelso Abbey
The earliest firm attestation of the surname in any spelling.
1204
ProbableThomas de Gordun
Merse, Berwickshire
Perambulation of the bounds of Gordon parish
Newly indexed in this version of the report.
1296
VerifiedAdam de Gordoun
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Ragman Roll — homage sworn to Edward I
Plate IV
The timeline
Century by century, the events the record will carry — and the periods it will not.
- 011150 — Richer de Gordun witnesses a charter in the Merse of Berwickshire
- 021296 — Adam de Gordoun's name is entered on the Ragman Roll
- 031408 — The family's lands shift north to Strathbogie in Aberdeenshire
- 041746 — Post-Culloden dispersal carries the name to Nova Scotia and Ulster
- 051881 — Aberdeenshire records the densest concentration of Gordons in Britain
12th century
1150
Berwickshire
The name enters the written record as a locative styling in Kelso Abbey's charter witness lists.
17th century
1610
County Down
Plantation settlement carries Lowland Gordon households into Ulster, where the name is still concentrated.
18th century
1746
Nova Scotia and the Carolinas
Post-Culloden dispersal and tenancy clearance push emigrant Gordons to the Maritimes and the American south.
The record goes quiet here.
1300 – 1400
Berwickshire's records were repeatedly destroyed during the Wars of Independence. Fourteenth-century Gordon holdings are known from later retours rather than contemporary deeds.
Plate V
Migration & spread
Documented concentrations in the order the record supports them. Tap a waypoint for its story.
County Down, Ulster · 1610 – 1700
Plantation settlement from the Scottish Lowlands.
The route is Border parish to northern earldom, then out along two Scottish diasporas: Ulster by plantation, and the Atlantic and Pacific by emigration.
Plate VI
Distribution today
Where the name lives now, and how that estimate was reached.
- Bearers today
- 412,000
- 1 in
- 19,400
In Aberdeenshire, roughly one person in every 120 still carries the name.
Aggregated national surname indexes and electoral rolls, weighted to 2024 population figures. Estimates for countries without a public index are excluded rather than modelled.
- United States41.2%
- United Kingdom21.8%
- Jamaica8.4%
- Canada6.1%
- Australia4.7%
- New Zealand2.2%
Plate VII
Rarity
How unusual the name is against every other surname in the same records.
Rarity percentile
88.4%
Uncommon
Share this rank
1 in 19,400
Gordon sits in the uncommon band — roughly one bearer in every 19,400 people.
Plate VIII
Variants & spellings
Clerks wrote what they heard, in the orthography they had. Each shift has a reason.
- Gordoun1296Scots scribal convention writes the unstressed final vowel as -oun through the fourteenth century.Border and Lothian clerks
- Gordone1470A silent terminal -e added by notaries writing Latin instruments.Aberdeenshire
- Gordan1690Phonetic respelling by clerks recording the name by ear rather than from a document.Ulster and the American colonies
Every shift here is a clerk's decision, not a family's. The spelling settles on Gordon only once print and civil registration standardise it in the nineteenth century.
Plate IX
Notable bearers
People the record names, with the strength of each identification stated.
Lord George Gordon
1751 – 1793PoliticsVerifiedLed the Protestant Association whose 1780 petition became the Gordon Riots.
Sharing this surname with anyone named here is not evidence of descent from them.
Plate X
Badges & figures
The screenshot-ready end of the research. Every badge is exportable on its own.
Established
1150
Centuries in the record
9
Rarity band
Uncommon
Documented spellings
4 forms
Countries mapped
5 waypoints
Densest county
Aberdeenshire
Older than
- the Magna Carta (1215)
- the University of Cambridge (1209)
- the last wolf in Scotland (c. 1680)
- every surname in Sweden that ends -sson by law (1901)
Name twins
412,000
About 412,000 people alive today write your surname the same way you do — roughly the population of Zurich.
Plate XI
Sources & methodology
Every citation in this report, the confidence legend, and what we did not find.
Verified
Two or more independent sources agree. Printed as fact.
Probable
One source carries the claim. Printed, and marked.
- 1Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongueetymology · earliest records · timeline · variants
- 2Black, The Surnames of Scotland (1946)etymology · origins · earliest records · timeline · notables
- 3Instrumenta Publica (Ragman Roll), Bannatyne Club 1834origins · earliest records · variants
- 4Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, vol. IIorigins · variants
- 5Scotland's Places — 1881 census surname indexorigins · timeline · migration · distribution · variants
- 6National Records of Scotland — Berwickshire retoursearliest records
- 7Forebears surname distribution indextimeline · migration · distribution
- 8Oxford Dictionary of National Biographynotables
On the gaps
Every section of this report reached citable ground. Where a single source carried a claim, it is marked probable rather than dressed up as fact.
Surname history research, not personal genealogy: a shared surname is not evidence of a shared ancestor.