Danish Names

Family names

The 10 most common family names in 1801/1803 were:

Most names can be spelled in different ways, see the examples in ( ).

The Top-10 was exactly the same in 2008.

Today’s Top-10 has the same names but the order is a little different; most importantly, Nielsen now the most common family name.

In total, there are around 147,000 different family names in Denmark of which 12,000 are patronymic family names (-sen).

More than half the Danish population has a patronymic family name.

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The 10 most common boy names in 1801/1803 were :

Variations of the names in ( ).

Half of the old names are still on today’s Top-10 boy names (number of people with the name):

But none of the old names is on Top-10 for boys born in 2018:

Of the names on the old Top-10, Christian is ranked highest in 2018 as No. 24.

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The 10 most common girl names in 1801/1803 were :

Anne (Ane, Anna, Ana, An, Ann) – 144,028
Maren (Marn, Marren) – 62,066
Karen (Caren, Karn, Karren) – 48,695
Kirsten (Kiersten, Kiesten, Kisten, Kjersten, Kjesten) – 32,320
Maria (Marie, Mari) – 28,676
Mette (Methe, Mætte, Metthe, Mett, Met) – 23,996
Johanne (Johane, Johanna, Johana) – 21,711
Else (Elsa) 12,311
Catharina (Catarina, Catarine, Catarin, Catharine, Chatarina, Katarina, Katharina) – 12,223
Ellen (Ellin, Ellien) – 9,596

(Variants of spelling)

43% of all girls and women had a top-10 name.

Four of the old names are still on today’s Top-10 girl names (number of people with the name):

Only one of the old names is on Top-10 for girls born in 2018, i.e. No 9 Anna:

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