Sutherland

Spellings & scripts●

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

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

• Greek surname627 records spelled Sutherland2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa

  Also written Σαδερλαντ

61 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●

Sutherland is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In English, Territorial name from Old Norse sudrland ‘southland’; used by the earldom family, recorded by 1360.

  as a name·Scottish Surnames

• In English, the man from Sutherland; first attested David de Sothirlandae 1332 Black

  as a name·A Dictionary of English Surnames

• In English, A habitational surname from Old English.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In English, Old Norse; from the southern land

  as a name·Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

• In Croatian, 1. Earl Wilbur (1915—1974), američki fiziolog, otkrio poseban enzim koji služi kao »glasnik« za funkcioniranje hormona; Nobelova nagrada za medicinu 1971. 2. Graham (1903—1980), engleski slikar ekspresivnih fantastičnih pejzaža i sakralnih kompozicija (predložak za golemu tapiseriju katedrale u Coventryju)

  as a word·Hrvatski jezični portal (HJP) dictionary export

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●

• Elinor Glynb. 1864GBnot in their usual nameBritish novelist and scriptwriter (1864-1943)
• Graham Vivian Sutherlandb. 1903GBEnglish artist (1903–1980)
• Earl Wilbur Sutherlandb. 1915USAmerican pharmacologist (1915–1974)
• Joan Sutherlandb. 1926AUAustralian soprano (1926-2010)
• Donald Sutherlandb. 1935CACanadian actor (1935–2024)
• Ivan Sutherlandb. 1938USAmerican computer scientist and Internet pioneer
• Kristine Sutherlandb. 1955USAmerican actress
• Kiefer Sutherlandb. 1966GBBritish-Canadian actor (born 1966)
• Rossif Sutherlandb. 1978CACanadian actor
• Alyssa Sutherlandb. 1982AUAustralian actress and model

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 73 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Sutherland?

We estimate roughly 31 thousand people bear Sutherland (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.

In which country does Sutherland have the most bearers?

Sutherland is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled sutherland.

Where is Sutherland most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Sutherland is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 233 people — even though United Kingdom holds more of our records for it.

How common is Sutherland compared with other names?

In the United Kingdom, Sutherland is the 523rd most common surname of 1,169,970 surnames recorded there.

What does the name Sutherland mean?

Recorded meaning: ‘person from Sutherland’, former county of northern Scotland, literally ‘southern land’.