Your Best Guess?

[kiltedrennie]

In the three towns I frequent, I've seen one guy wearing his own kilt casually. He's a high school kid in our marching band (the Howell Highlanders). I also overheard someone exiting the bar as I entered exclaim to their male friend/husband/boyfriend "Hey, you should wear your kilt next time!". Totally unscientific of course, but that works out to 0.01%.

Assuming I'm off by a factor of 10, across the state of Michigan, it would be around a thousand at most. Feels like a good guestimate for frequent kilt wearers. I'm sure with the number of Scottish society members, Renaissance fair goers, etc. there are many more occasional kilt wearer/owners.

I wish I knew of a way to survey this. Someone at Facebook could probably give a good estimate based on their database.

[OC Richard]

The 'cottaging' discussion gave me the biggest laugh I'd had in a while!

Funny those sorts of things... for example the purselike thing worn round the waist is called a 'bum bag' in some countries but a 'fanny pack' in the USA, which leads to a certain amount of sniggering from visitors here.

I'd never heard the term 'cottaging' at all. We don't use the term 'cottage' itself for any sort of thing... my Grandfather's small house down on the riverbank, and all things like it, we call 'cabins'.

[California Highlander]

I'd never heard the term 'cottaging' at all. We don't use the term 'cottage' itself for any sort of thing... my Grandfather's small house down on the riverbank, and all things like it, we call 'cabins'.

Funny how California is such a big state and the differences in terminology can be large. "Cottages" from my upbringing in NorCal are a small style of house, usually with a English look or an Eastern Seaboard look. So the small house down by the riverbank could be a cottage, unless the architecture was more rustic, natural wood, possibly logs, then it would be a "cabin". Cabins definitely imply rustic and woodsy up north.

"Cottaging" I've not heard in the Canadian nor the UK usage!

Also, we have a lot of Scottish-identifiers up north, but not many wear kilts. I see very few outside of the games in the bay area. I wear mine most days after work and frequently out and about on weekends. There is one other guy in our small burg of 10k who has his own kilt and wears it. A few Burns Night renters. The rest are pipe bands.

[Highlander31]

Funny how California is such a big state and the differences in terminology can be large. "Cottages" from my upbringing in NorCal are a small style of house, usually with a English look or an Eastern Seaboard look. So the small house down by the riverbank could be a cottage, unless the architecture was more rustic, natural wood, possibly logs, then it would be a "cabin". Cabins definitely imply rustic and woodsy up north.

"Cottaging" I've not heard in the Canadian nor the UK usage!

Also, we have a lot of Scottish-identifiers up north, but not many wear kilts. I see very few outside of the games in the bay area. I wear mine most days after work and frequently out and about on weekends. There is one other guy in our small burg of 10k who has his own kilt and wears it. A few Burns Night renters. The rest are pipe bands.

That's what I remember growing up in San Jose. We had a small place on Jack's Peak overlooking Monterey Bay, that was our vacation getaway. It looked like it could be in the English countryside.

Before we left the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005, my wife and I would go to the Kings Head Pub in Campbell (one of the cities that ring San Jose) every Thursday night for their "Celtic Night." The pub was owned by an English couple, who offered a dollar off your drink if you wore a kilt. If women came in renfaire costume, they also would get the discount on their drinks. On a good night, there would be fifteen to twenty kilts in attendance.

By 2005, San Jose had a population of over a million, with Santa Clara County being somewhere around two million people. The area had also become quite diverse with large Latino and Asian enclaves. As a guess, I would say less than a quarter of one percent of the male population might have kilts in the area.

The demographics change as you move up the Peninsula toward San Francisco. I would imagine they might have a higher percentage of kilts there.

Where we live now, I have not seen another kilt. Although, the town forty-five minutes North of us has a well known Burns Night with approximately seventy-five to one hundred people attending each year. Due to the low population of our area, we might have near half of one percent of the men owning a kilt.

Great idea for a thread Jock. Thanks for starting it.

[Andrews Son]

I have never seen anybody wearing a kilt in coventry its has a population of 300,000 but has a large scottish and irish communitys. I curently trying to get a few friends interested so if they did start wearing the number could be about 5...lol. I don't see many of the bagpipers wearing kilts outside of performances I'll have to wear a kilt to one of my lessons and see the reactions I get. I know of a few people who wore them to weddings and the like, I brought a kilt for a mate once don't know if he wears it still.

Lol cottaging...hilarious

[OC Richard]

"Cottages" from my upbringing in NorCal are a small style of house, usually with a English look or an Eastern Seaboard look.

I'm from central West Virginia and I don't remember ever seeing such a thing as you describe there.

The word 'cottage' would invariably be used to describe an English cottage, like we would read about in books.

Come to think of it, in all these years in Southern California now under by belt I can't remember anyone ever describing any local structure as a 'cottage'. The rustic houses in the local Southern California mountains are usually called 'cabins' even if they're rather large and house-like.

Like this

http://www.idyllwildcabins.com/

though here you can see one place using the term 'cottages'

http://www.idyllwildcalifornia.com/lodging.htm

[Highlander31]

.....Come to think of it, in all these years in Southern California now under by belt I can't remember anyone ever describing any local structure as a 'cottage'. The rustic houses in the local Southern California mountains are usually called 'cabins' even if they're rather large and house-like.

Like this

http://www.idyllwildcabins.com/

though here you can see one place using the term 'cottages'

http://www.idyllwildcalifornia.com/lodging.htm

Growing up in Northern California, a cabin was usually a small rustic building. While it could be built out of logs, that was not always a requirement.

Northern and Southern California have always been separate states culturally. My family arrived in San Francisco in 1849 and were involved in the building of business in "The City", as well as the founding of the state. My great-aunt (who was alive when Custer had his last stand, and lived long enough to see us land on the moon) explained to me, that it was always different between the two California's.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I had to explain when I traveled, that bronzed girls in bikinis on roller skates, was mainly in L.A.

[Grizzly]

With apologies for the deviation from the OP.

For the sake of clarification, and as an example of the locality in which I grew up here is a picture of Arlington Row in Bibury, Gloucestershire. It's a traditional row of cottages known as two up two down, it was a small abode inhabited by workers in the woollen industry or estate workers. It still exists and is a major tourist destination in what we call the West Country of England.

[Jock Scot]

I know that view really well Simon!

[cck]

I live in a city with a metropolitan population of about 1.5 million. If you exclude pipers, I would be surprised if there were more than 100 men who own kilts and wear them at least once a year.