Manx Surnames from 1881 census

These names are taken from heads of household who declared themselves born on the Isle of Man in the 1881 census. A total of some 8,870 heads of household met this criteria - some 450 names were borne by 2 or more families. (Heads of Households approximate to 'families' however note this criteria will miss those in lodgings (generally single persons) or multiple occupation (does not appear to be significant on the Island)).

The figure associated with each name gives the number of such heads - the top 20 family names account for more than a third of the total.

Quilliam provides a ranking of manx names in the 1986 telephone directory:

Not too different from the 1881 rankings except for Kneale.

Quilliam also quotes a similar list of those names with 2,000 or more Parish Record entries (Rex Kissack once estimated that these records had about 200,000 entries dating from c.1700 to 1870).

The only names which are very common in the records but rare by 1881 are Cowle (moved to Cowell), Cubbin (to Cubbon), Kelley (to Kelly)and Quail (to Quayle ?)

References

L. Quilliam Surnames of the Manks Cashtal Books (ISBN 0-9514539-0-4) 1989
R. Kissack Anatomy of a Manx Family IoM Fam History Soc vol 2 No 4 pp95-101