Daily AncestorDoes your surname have a family coat of arms?
Hanging in the hallway is a framed shield with a lion, three stars and a Latin motto, under our surname in gold letters. It came from a shop at a fair, or a catalog, or a website, and it shows 'the family coat of arms'. Somewhere along the line, the story goes, our name was a noble one, and this is the crest our ancestors carried.
No surname has a coat of arms. Arms were granted to one person and passed to that person's descendants, so most people who share a name have no right to any particular arms.
Why the idea is so appealing
A coat of arms is a beautiful thing to own, and it feels like proof that the family mattered. Shops and websites that sell 'your name's coat of arms' make the connection seem simple: type in a surname and a shield appears. Many families bought one in good faith, and some of these prints have hung on walls for decades. There is nothing foolish about liking them. The problem is only what they claim to show.
What the heralds say
The College of Arms, whose Kings of Arms grant new arms on behalf of the British Crown, answers the question directly: there is no such thing as a coat of arms for a surname. Arms are granted or confirmed to one person, and they pass to that person's descendants in the legitimate male line. So two families who share a name may have quite different arms, and most people with any given surname have no right to arms at all.
Scotland's heraldic authority, the Court of the Lord Lyon, says the same in even plainer words. Scotland has no 'family coat of arms'. Each coat of arms belongs to a single person while he or she lives, and even the heir must add a mark of difference. A clan has no coat of arms either; the chief has personal arms, and clan members may wear a badge made from the chief's crest inside a belt and buckle.
Lyon also addresses the shield on the wall. Most information online about arms 'for' a surname is, in its words, completely inauthentic, and often shows the arms of a clan chief that only the chief may use. A shield bought from a heraldic shop, Lyon says, is no more than a souvenir with no authority behind it.
Some American families did use arms
None of this means arms never appear in American family history. Some families in early America did use coats of arms, and reference books such as Bolton's American Armory (1927), a record of arms used within the United States, and Crozier's General Armory (1904) list them by family. The Library of Virginia keeps an index to 33 titles on family coats of arms, American and British, searchable by name. An entry in one of these books is a lead about a specific family, not a badge for everyone with the name.
The College of Arms also notes that a United States citizen who can show descent from a subject of the British Crown can apply for honorary arms. That is a new grant to a person, built on proven descent. It is not a way to claim an old one by surname.
How to tell if arms are really yours
A right to arms is a genealogy question. You would need to show, record by record, that you descend in the male line from a specific person to whom arms were granted or confirmed, then ask the heralds to check it. Without that chain, enjoy the shield as decoration, and put your research time into the records that tell you who your ancestors actually were.
- Trace the paternal line back generation by generation with wills, deeds and church registers before thinking about arms.
- Find the immigrant ancestor's passenger list or naturalization papers to learn the town of origin.
- Search the Library of Virginia's index to family coat of arms sources for a specific ancestor, not just the surname.
- If old family papers show a coat of arms, work out which ancestor used it and when, then trace your line to that person.
- If you have a documented male line back to a known armiger, ask the College of Arms or the Court of the Lord Lyon to check the claim.
Record guides for this
Wills and probate records
A will and its probate file can name a wife, every living child, married daughters' husbands and grandchildren in one place, often decades before any birth certificate existed.
Record guideChurch records: baptisms, marriages and burials
Church registers recorded baptisms, marriages and burials long before states kept vital records, often naming parents, godparents and the family's home village.
Record guidePassenger lists before 1925
Passenger lists, or ship manifests, record immigrants as they arrived; from 1820 they give name, age and country, and later lists add much more.
Record guideReading old gravestones
An old gravestone can give exact dates, an age to the day and a spouse's name, but it was often carved years later, so read it carefully and never harm the stone.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Does your surname have a family coat of arms?." Family myths. https://dailyancestor.com/myths/family-coat-of-arms. Last checked 2026-10-15.