Is National Scott Day the same as National Tartan Day?

No, they are separate observances on separate dates. National Tartan Day falls on April 6 and honours Scottish Americans generally, while National Scott Day falls on March 5 and honours people who carry the name.

What does the name Scott mean?

It comes from Latin Scoti, a word for a Gael or Gaelic speaker, and the Old English plural Scottas meant the people of Ireland. It attached to Scotland only after those Gaels settled in northern Britain.

Why is National Scott Day on March 5?

It is a general name day rather than an anniversary, so it honours everyone called Scott instead of one particular person. No source explains why this specific date was chosen.

National Scott Day

Next celebratedFriday, March 5, 2027

Scot was a warning in the Roman record before it was anybody's name, used in the fourth century for raiders who came out of Ireland. March 5 hands the day to a name that changed countries.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

--DAYS

--HRS

--MIN

--SEC

Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEMarch 5

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A name day carried by the people who mark it.

No founder or establishing record has been identified for National Scott Day. It circulates on holiday listing sites, and businesses have marked it publicly on March 5 under the hashtag it carries.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

A name that meant Irish before it meant Scottish

Americans named Scott are carrying a word that started out as the name of another country's people. National Scott Day honours the name, and for its first several centuries that name pointed at Ireland rather than at Scotland.

The name did well in the United States all the same. Social Security has counted 771,306 American boys given it over the last hundred years.

That is enough to place it 40th among boys' names of the American century. What survives underneath the fashion is older and stranger, a word that changed nationality on its way to the birth certificate.

ORIGINS

Scott Day history

INTRODUCTION

The word turns up in the Roman record as a threat. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in the fourth century, described raids on Roman Britain by "the savage tribes of the Scots and the Picts, who had broken the peace that had been agreed upon." Nothing in that sentence is about Scotland.

CHAPTER 01

How a word crossed the sea

In the oldest records the word describes the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland. Bede finished his history of the English church in 731 and was specific about it, describing Pictish sailors blown off course who "came to Ireland and landed on its northern shores," and found the nation of the Scots. Britain received them afterwards, as "a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating from Ireland under their leader, Reuda."

CHAPTER 02

Uchtred, son of Scot

Around 1120 Earl David, son of King Malcolm, granted the charter founding an abbey at Selkirk. It greets "Omnibus amicis suis Francis et Anglis et Scottis," all his friends, French and English and Scots. Further down, among the witnesses, sits a man recorded as "Uchtredo filio Scot."

The Latin is worth reading slowly. It says son of Scot, not Scot, so the byname belonged to Uchtred's father and Uchtred is being identified by it. One word names a whole people in the greeting and one man in the signatures, on the same sheet of parchment.

CHAPTER 03

The name reaches America

Scott was in American use long before it was fashionable. The composer Scott Joplin was born in Texas in the late 1860s, though Britannica notes that the exact date and place of his birth are unknown.

Wide adoption came much later. The Social Security Administration's decade tables show Scott absent from the 200 most popular boys' names for six straight decades. Its first appearance ranked 164th, in the 1940s, and by the 2000s it had dropped off the list again.

CHAPTER 04

The day itself

National Scott Day has no comparable paper trail. No founder, no establishing act and no explanation for March 5 turn up in any record found for this page, and federal publication searches for the day's name return nothing at all. What it has instead is people using it.

On March 5, 2024 a jeweller in Defiance, Ohio posted "Today is National Scott Day!" and added the obvious joke, "Wait, isn't EVERY day Scott day?" The shop said the day honours anyone carrying the name, "whether it's a first name, last name or even a nickname." That is a fair description of what nine centuries did to the word, which is now both at once.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Bede places the Scots in Ireland

Completing his history of the English church, Bede describes the Scots as a people living in Ireland who reached Britain later.

Uchtred son of Scot appears

The charter founding the abbey at Selkirk is witnessed by a man recorded in Latin as Uchtredo filio Scot, one of the earliest people identified by the name.

The same man witnesses again

Uchtred son of Scot turns up a second time, among the witnesses to Earl David's inquest into the lands of the church of Glasgow.

Scott enters the US rankings

The name reaches the Social Security Administration's list of the 200 most popular boys' names for the first time, at 164th.

Scotland ranks Scott second

Scott reaches its highest position in Scotland's published series of first names, second among boys with 951 registered that year.

Scott leaves the US rankings

The name drops out of the American top 200 for the decade and has not appeared in one since.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Scott Day by the Numbers

15th: US rank for boys, 1960s
266,828: US boys named Scott, 1960s
11th: Rank among Scottish surnames, 2025
23: Scottish baby boys named Scott, 2025

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Scott Day

LANGUAGE

Scotland is named for people who sailed there from Ireland.

The country took its name from the Gaelic settlers who arrived from Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries. Latin Scotia began appearing in the ninth century as the name for the region, displacing the older Caledonia.

UNSOLVED

The root of the word was never traced

A name carried by hundreds of thousands of Americans rests on a word whose own origin the reference works decline to fix. The Online Etymology Dictionary notes that Late Latin Scotti answers to no known tribal name, and Behind the Name calls the ultimate origin uncertain.

CALENDAR

The documented Scottish American day is a different one

Proclamation 8233, signed on April 4, 2008, proclaimed April 6 of that year as National Tartan Day. It called on Americans to celebrate the continued friendship between the people of Scotland and the United States.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Scott Day

Read the charter that first wrote the name down

Sir Archibald Lawrie's edition of the earliest Scottish charters prints the Selkirk foundation text in full. The witness list near the end is where Uchtred son of Scot appears.

TRACE

Trace the name through Scotland's own registers

National Records of Scotland publishes every first name given to babies since 1974, with a count and a rank for each year. Scott's line in that file starts seventh in 1974 and ends at 178th in 2025.

LOOK

Look up the decade you were born in

The Social Security Administration posts a table of the 200 most popular names for every decade back to the 1880s. Start with the 2000s table, then walk back through the decades and see where Scott appears.

PUT

Put on some Scott Joplin

The name was already circulating in America when the ragtime composer was born in Texas in the 1860s. His work is the easiest way to hear a Scott who predates the name's boom by roughly seventy years.

ASK

Ask a Scott whether they inherited it or were given it

In Scotland the word now arrives far more often as a surname than as a first name. Asking which one it is turns an ordinary greeting into a small piece of family history.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Scott Day?

1 / 8

In the oldest records, which people did the word behind the name describe?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

15sources

11primary records

7independently dated

Primary records

Internet Archive1905

Early Scottish Charters prior to A.D. 1153, edited by Sir Archibald C. Lawrie

Edited Latin text of the charters of pre-1153 Scotland, including Earl David's foundation charter for the Abbey of Selkirk, whose greeting addresses the French, English and Scots and whose witness list records Uchtred son of Scot.