Johnston

[johnstonville]

How common is the name Johnston in Scotland?
Is Wigtown a suburb in Wigtownshire?
Thanxs

[Forfarian]

Johns(t)on(e) is a very common surname in Scotland. In a survey published by the Registrar General for Scotland Johnston was the 28th commonest surname and Johnstone the 69th commonest. Johnson was not in the top 100.

A quick search in the main index at Scotland's People says there are 481,701 references to Johnston, 277,056 to Johnstone and 68,222 to Johnson. As a search for Jo*ns*n* produces 845,423 references, there must be 18,444 references with other spellings.

Wigtown is not a suburb.

Historically Scotland was divided into 33 counties and into 901 parishes. Each county had a County Town, which is or was the administrative centre of the county. Many counties have the same name as their County Town, with -shire added.

Wigtown is a town in the parish of the same name, in the County of Wigtown, which is also known as Wigtownshire. See https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/WIG for background information about the county.