The Most Common Surnames in Grenada
Grenada's electoral roll lists over 96,000 registered voters across more than 7,500 distinct surnames. Pulling the actual frequency data from that roll reveals a clear national pattern — and a few genuine exceptions to it.
The 10 most common surnames nationally
Based on the current electoral roll, these are the most frequent surnames among Grenada's registered voters:
Charles dominates — almost everywhere
Charles isn't just the most common surname nationally; it's the single most common surname in five of Grenada's seven parishes: Saint Andrew, Saint David, Saint George, Saint Mark, and Saint Patrick. That kind of concentration across such a wide geographic spread is unusual — most countries' most common surnames vary considerably by region.
Where the pattern breaks
Two parishes buck the national trend entirely. In Saint John, Thomas is the most common surname rather than Charles. And on Carriacou & Petite Martinique — geographically separate from the mainland and with its own distinct settlement history — Joseph takes the top spot instead.
Why surnames cluster like this
Surname concentration on this scale usually traces back to the plantation era and the way enslaved and indentured populations were historically assigned or adopted family names, often parish by parish rather than uniformly across the island. Carriacou & Petite Martinique's distinct top surname reflects its separate settlement history from the Grenadian mainland. A genuine surname-origin study would need historical parish records beyond what's in the modern electoral roll — but the geographic clustering visible in today's data is a real echo of that history.
Look up your own surname
See how common your surname is in Grenada and which parishes it's most concentrated in.
Explore the Surname ExplorerFigures drawn from the current Grenada Consolidated List of Electors. Individual-level data is never published; all figures here are aggregated.