on Scotlands People Births what does RD Name as "Service Returns" mean?

[Paulo Leeds]

Year 1940

[Girl Guide]

1940 was a WW2 year.  It could mean that the child's father was in the services.  They may have done a special district relating specifically to births of children whose father/parents were in the services.

Just looked further on the Scotland Peoples website and found the below:-

Service records (from 1881)
Army returns (1881-1959) - births of Scottish persons at military stations abroad
Service Departments' registers (from 1 April 1959) - births outside the United Kingdom to persons ordinarily resident in Scotland who are serving in, or employed by, HM Forces

[Paulo Leeds]

yeah looks like he was stationed abroad where his offspring was born

[Flattybasher9]

From SP

"RD stands for Registration District which in this case is the Service Returns rather than a place."

Malky

[andrewalston]

"Ordinarily resident" appears to have been stretched a bit.
I have a WW2 death in the far east under Service Returns. He was born in 1915 when his father was building the docks at Rosyth, but by 1920 he was in Bedfordshire, and served in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment.
The entry from ScotlandsPeople duplicates what I already had from the Commonwealth War Graves entry, with the addition of "Scotland" for country of birth.