Danish Names
Originally, children’s family names were patronyms, i.e. -søn and later -sen (son) for boys and -datter (daughter) for girls.
1828 – Free choice of the family name
In 1828, Frederik VI issued a christening decree, in which it was stated that every child should be christened “not only with a first name, but also with the family name that it should bear in the future”. The priests were to ensure that the children were not christened “inappropriate names.” It is said that this provision was caused by a case with a man who had wanted to pay tribute to the Danish equality calling his daughter Spartasina.
The Christening Ordinance gave no answer as to who should decide what the children should be named. Therefore, it was followed up by a circular that stipulated that if the family did not already have a family name, it was up to the father to determine the child’s surname. The fathers were even given a number of choices when choosing surnames for the pods:
The father’s own surname
Father’s first name followed by a -sen (patronymic)
A place name that the family was associated with
The circular also stated that all siblings should bear the same surname. For the women, this meant in practice a farewell to the custom with the father’s first name followed by -datter.
It was not without problems to introduce laws that went against centuries-old traditions. Particularly in the rural parishes, the attitude was that the authorities, with their naming rules, stuck their noses into something that did not strike them. It was edible that all children should have the same surname, and after 1828 the female patronymics disappear just as quietly. It was more so with the fixed family names and that the children would often get the father’s surname, which was actually the grandfather’s patronymic.
In many places, they chose to interpret the circular in such a way that each generation had to decide their own family name. And thus, the whole idea of the name law was lost.
1856 – Same family name for future generations
Therefore, in 1856 it was emphasized that the family name chosen according to the 1828-law was to be the family name in the future, not just for one generation. However, the implementation of these new naming rules was still hesitant in many rural parishes and the naming practice for children born in the second half of the 19th Century differed from parish to parish.
Due to the naming changes some women would eventually change the family name from -datter to -sen. A girl christened Cathrine Redersdatter could for instance be Cathrine Pedersen at her death.
If a person had more than one given name, it could vary which name(s) were used as well as the order of the names. The spelling of the names was quite inconsistent in the earlier days.
The 10 most common family names in 1801/1803 were:
Jensen (Jenssen)
Nielsen (Nilsen)
Pedersen (Petersen, Pettersen)
Hansen (Hanssen)
Christensen (Kristensen, Chrestensen)
Andersen (Anderssen)
Larsen (Larssen)
Sørensen (Sörensen)
Rasmussen (Rasmusen)
Jørgensen
In 2024, the Top-10 has the exact same names and the order is only a little different. Most importantly is that Nielsen now the most common family name:
Nielsen
Jensen
Hansen
Andersen
Pedersen
Christensen
Larsen
Sørensen
Rasmussen
Jørgensen
In total, there are around 147,000 different family names in Denmark of which 12,000 are patronymic family names, i.e. with the “sen” at the end.
More than half the Danish population has a patronymic family name.