Mclane
Son of the champion, referring to one from a renowned family.
Name Census estimates that about 140 living Americans carry the first name Mclane. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 89.4% of registrations being male. The average person named Mclane today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Mclane births was 1996 (14 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Mclane. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
People living today
140
~ 1 in 2,448,245 Americans
Peak year
1996
14 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#11,823
Tracked since 1993
Census
Mclane in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 220 people with the first name Mclane, which placed it at #36,203 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#36,203
National first-name rank
People counted
220
220 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
88.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Mclane
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mclane is White at 88.6%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.1%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (3.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Mclane described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Mclane at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White88.6% · 195
- Two or more races4.1% · 9
- American Indian and Alaska Native3.2% · 7
- Hispanic or Latino2.7% · 6
- Black or African American0.9% · 2
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.5% · 1
Gender
Gender distribution for Mclane
Mclane leans heavily male at 89.4% of total registrations, but 15 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Mclane as a male name
- Ranked #11,823 in 2024
- 6 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1996 (14 births)
Mclane as a female name
- Ranked #16,893 in 2022
- 5 female births in 2022
- Peak: 2013 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Mclane on both sides of the split. Of the 216 people counted with this name, 172 were male (79.6%) and 44 were female (20.4%).
Popularity
Mclane: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Mclane from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 54 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1990s peak, Mclane remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Mclane by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Mclane during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Mclane
The name Mclane has its origins in the Scottish Gaelic language and culture, emerging in the late medieval period around the 13th or 14th century. It is believed to be derived from the Scottish Gaelic words "mac" meaning "son" and "lann" meaning "enclosure" or "land." This suggests that the name may have initially referred to the son of someone who owned or resided on a particular piece of land or estate.
While there are no known direct references to the name Mclane in ancient texts or religious scriptures, it likely emerged as a patronymic surname in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Early variations of the spelling included MacLaine, McLain, and McClane, reflecting the fluidity of orthography in those times.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Mclane can be found in the 16th century, when a man named Lachlan Mor Mclane was noted as the chief of the Clan Lachlan, a Highland Scottish clan based on the Isle of Islay. Another notable early bearer of the name was Sir John Mclane, a Scottish knight who fought alongside Robert the Bruce during the Scottish Wars of Independence in the early 14th century.
As the name spread beyond Scotland, there have been several prominent individuals with the first name Mclane throughout history. These include:
1. Mclane Tilton (1815-1902), an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States Senator from Nevada.
2. Mclane Grant (1851-1922), an American lawyer and businessman who co-founded the city of Miami, Florida.
3. Mclane Browne (1875-1946), an American actor and director who appeared in several silent films during the early 20th century.
4. Mclane Griffith (1889-1976), an American lawyer and politician who served as the Attorney General of Texas from 1933 to 1935.
5. Mclane Edmonson (1927-2001), an American painter and artist known for his abstract expressionist works.
While the name Mclane has Scottish origins and historical roots, it has since been adopted and used in various parts of the world, particularly in the United States and other English-speaking countries.
People
Mclane + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Mclane as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with M
Other first names starting with M with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Mclane: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Mclane?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 140 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Mclane going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 2,448,245 US residents.
Is Mclane a common name?
We classify Mclane as "Very Rare". It ranks above 69.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 142 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Mclane most popular?
The single biggest year for Mclane was 1996, when 14 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Mclane is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Mclane in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 220 people with the name Mclane, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #36,203 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Mclane in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Mclane?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Mclane on both sides of the split. Of the 216 people counted with this name, 172 were male (79.6%) and 44 were female (20.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Mclane?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Mclane is White at 88.6%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.1%) and American Indian/Alaska Native (3.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Mclane most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Mclane in the 2020 Census, accounting for 88.6% (195 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Mclane in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Mclane a male name?
Yes, 89.4% of people registered as Mclane in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Mclane still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Mclane in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Mclane can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Mclane?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.