Reid
also Read, Reade
The red one, descriptive Scots surname, dense in the Lothians and the Borders.
- Origin
- Lothian & Edinburgh, Scotland
- Motto
- Virtutis gloria merces
- Famous bearer
- Thomas Reid (1710–1796), philosopher, founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense
- Register
- Scottish family
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Reid
Seat vacantChief
No one leads the Reid community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.
Current mission
No shared goal set yet. Once Reid has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.
The Reid clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.
Help rebuild the Reid clan →Motto
Virtutis gloria merces
“Glory is the reward of valour”
What does the Reid name mean?
Descriptive, the red one. Scots 'reid' from Old English read, applied as a personal byname to a man of red hair or red complexion. The English equivalent is Read or Reade; the Welsh is Goch, the Gaelic Ruadh. Where most Scottish patronymics generated multiple variants, Reid stayed compact, the descriptive 'reid' was so embedded in everyday Scots that the surname needed no further compression.
The history of Reid
Reid is among the most common Scots surnames, sitting alongside Brown ('brown'), Black ('black') and the smaller Gray ('grey') in the family of descriptive personal-byname surnames that froze into hereditary use at the same medieval moment as the patronymics.
Thomas Reid (1710–1796) of Strachan in Kincardineshire was the founding figure of the Scottish School of Common Sense Philosophy, the philosophical movement that, alongside David Hume, defined the Scottish Enlightenment in moral and epistemological thought, and that profoundly shaped American academic philosophy through Princeton in the 18th and 19th centuries.
John Reid, 1st Baron Reid of Cardowan (b. 1947), former Secretary of State for Defence and for the Home Department, is among the modern Scottish-Reid bearers; the international diaspora of the name is large and concentrated, like most Scottish surnames, in the post-Clearances destinations of North America and Australasia.
Champions of the Reid name
The bearers whose lives are inseparable from this surname. Each has its own page — biography, achievements, geography, connection to the family.
- Thomas Reid
The Aberdeen-trained minister who answered David Hume's skepticism with the philosophy of Common Sense and founded the Scottish school that would shape American thought through the nineteenth century.
- George Reid
The Renfrewshire-born Prime Minister of Australia who became its first High Commissioner in London.
Step Into History
Walk the streets and seats the Reid name knew — a photoreal walk through time, on foot.
Step Into History · New
The castle on its crag, St Giles' crown spire, and the closes tumbling to the Cowgate.
Step Into History · New
Scotland's ecclesiastical capital at its peak — the great cathedral, the bishop's castle on the sea, and the new university.
Notable bearers of the Reid name
- Thomas Reid (1710–1796), philosopher, founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense
- Sir George Reid (1841–1913), fourth Prime Minister of Australia
- Beryl Reid (1919–1996), actress