Distribution of the Tod and Todd Name in Scotland

January 2026

In the parish registers from the 1500s through 1855, most of the Tod/Todd name were Tod’s with 6414 Tod’s and only 2631 Todds.

But by the 1851 census, there had been so many changes of the spelling from Tod to Todd, that most of the name were Todds with 1896 Todds and only 728 Tods.

The Tod/Todd name was distributed throughout Scotland, but the largest concentration of the name was Fife with almost 25% of all parish register entries in Scotland. Similarly, the area of northeast Scotland (including Fife, Angus, Aberdeen, Kincardine, Kinross, Perth) contained 40% of all parish register entries. The Lothians including Edinburgh contained almost 20% of all entries; the Ayrshire Lanarkshire areas contained 17% of all entries and the “Borders” (the counties adjacent to England) contained 12%.

Scotland was the source of much migration to other parts of the world, especially Ireland in the 1600s and Australia, New Zealand, Canada in the 1800s.

With respect to migration to Ireland, the largest numbers of migrants came from Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dumfries and Galloway (Kirkcudbright and Wigtonshire), the Scottish Borders (Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire) in Scotland and the counties of Cumberland/Cumbria , Durham, Northumberland, Yorkshire in Northern England.