My Surname Is Campbell – Does That Mean I Am Of Scottish Descent?

The surname Campbell is definitely a Scottish name and is the name of a clan founded in the 13 century. However, different surnames often arise in more than one place for different reasons and it is impossible to say without researching your family history in detail where your ancestors came from.

In my own family I have Campbell ancestors and a family story says that my great grandfather came down from Scotland where he was a shepherd. This turned out to be complete rubbish. The family line goes back to East Anglia where my ancestors in this particular line lived in the villages of Swaffham Prior and Swaffham Bulbeck in Suffolk in the 1600s. They were called Camel or Cammel, and their name was changed over a couple of hundred years to the more common Campbell, probably because people misspelled and mispronounced it.

So, you are just as likely to be of East Anglian descent as Scottish.

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