Official recording of your tartan design (optional)

Official recording of new tartan designs is not necessary to design or use your own tartan. Recording a tartan gives you no additional legal protections. However, it might be evidence presentable in the case of a legal dispute over the design being your intellectual property.

Recording is now undertaken by the Scottish Register of Tartans, at Register House in Edinburgh (a body that I helped bring into being as an original member of its Development and then Steering Group which I then served on for many years). It took over the archives and recording functions previously mostly undertaken by the Scottish Tartan Authority (of which I was also a Governor for many years).

We would advise that you consider recording your tartan if you intend to have it woven for anything other than personal use (e.g. for a club or company) as this provides institutional support to your claims to your unique design. The Register charges a separate fee for this service.

We request that if you go on to formally record with the Scottish Register of Tartans a design created in our online Tartan Designer, please include in the recording notes that it was designed with the help of the “CLAN Online Tartan Designer“.

Rules governing registration of your tartan at the SRT

Once a tartan is named, it can be registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans, which maintains a database of all tartans and their associated names and histories. This helps to ensure that each tartan is unique and that its name and history are preserved for future generations.

If you intend to register your tartan design at the SRT, please follow the SRT's own detailed advice, which is as follows (as of March 2023):

• Your proposed tartan name should describe the nature and purpose of your tartan as clearly and succinctly as possible, using the English language, taking into account the guidelines below. Note: American English spellings will be corrected to British English where appropriate. If you wish to submit your application in another language then please contact us for advice.
• The proposed name must be unique on the Register. Your name may be amended if it is found to be too similar to the name of an existing registered tartan. It must differ from the names of all tartans already included on the Register. Spelling variants of family names, e.g. McLeod and MacLoud or MacName and McName, will be regarded as the same name for the purposes of registration.
• The proposed name must be no more than 200 characters in length.
• You must be able to demonstrate a personal association with the proposed name. You must therefore explain fully why you have chosen the proposed name and explain your association with it. The Keeper may refuse an application if your association is not determined to be sufficient or substantial. A general interest in a subject matter may not be considered to be a sufficient or substantial association.
• Tartan names cannot be used as a means of promoting political statements or to represent political campaigns or ideology.
• If you are applying to register a tartan on behalf of a third party, whether an individual, clan, corporation, place, regiment or other body, you must provide evidence of your authority to use their name for the tartan.
• Where the name of a tartan is a surname and that surname has a chief, head of the whole name or commander for that clan or family, then written approval from the chief, head or commander is required. These tartans will be put in the Clan / Family tartan category.
• Tartan names cannot be deemed to be a design that represents multiple groups unless there is an official person who represents all the groups and authority is received from that person or convening organisation.
• Tartan names in the Name category must include a surname and a forename or initial followed by (Personal) with the applicant(s) having a clear association with the proposed surname(s) and forename(s). The year of registration or geographical location may be added to the tartan name in order to make the name unique. Thus, any tartans in the Name category will be in the following format:

• 'Surname, Forename (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Initial (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Forename & Family (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Initial & Family (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Forename (Year) (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Forename, location (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Forename - Wedding (Personal)'; or
• 'Surname, Forename & Surname, Forename - Wedding (Personal)'.

Note that it is not acceptable to include the word ‘Tartan’ in the tartan name.

The addition of tartan descriptors, Hunting and Dress, to a tartan name will only be accepted for the purposes of registration where an original tartan of the same name is registered e.g Ferguson, A, Hunting (Personal) can only be registered if Ferguson, A (Personal) has already been registered. You may be required to offer proof of your association with an original existing tartan and appropriate authority to register a further version of it.

The use of ‘Modern’ or ‘Ancient’ will not be accepted as these are tartan terms for different shades (softer or brighter) of the same colours and would therefore not be considered to unique or sufficiently different. The use of colours is also not acceptable.

• Tartan names cannot include religious titles or names of Saints unless the name of the Saint is included because it is within the official name of a building, place or official organisation.
• The proposed name must not include a country or place or give the impression that the tartan has the official backing of a clan/family, organisation, regiment, city, state or other place unless evidence of official backing is submitted. You should explain your personal association with the name and why you have chosen it. The Keeper may refuse an application if your association is not determined to be sufficient or substantial.
• A tartan cannot be the name of anything that is already covered by an official registered trademark or is an idea or intellectual property owned by an individual or group without their express permission in the form of written authority.
• Where a tartan is named after a specific event and if there is a body that is responsible for organising that event then authority from that body to include the event in the tartan name is required.
• The preposition 'of' has a specific meaning in Scots law indicating ownership of all the lands so described. Please do not use 'of' in the tartan name unless you can demonstrate ownership of the lands so described.

Only titles recognised by the Court of the Lord Lyon in Scotland may be used in naming tartans.