Henning
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: present participle and gerund of hen
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 27 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
Henning is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 3.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 5.8K
- AGAntigua & Barbuda≈1 in 6.7Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 398 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈22,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Patronymic from the personal name Heinrich; plate documents consonant variation n/ng, -k/-g, and genitive/patronymic -s/-sen forms.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
How Henning is read
(measured from records)Henning is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English69%
present participle and gerund of hen
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German14%
Patronymic from the personal name Heinrich; plate documents consonant variation n/ng, -k/-g, and genitive/patronymic -s/-sen forms.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Patronym bzw. diminutivische Ableitung zu Heinrich oder Johannes; zeigt n-Schwund im Suffix -ing > -ig. Bearer count: 7945.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Patronym zu Heinrich/Henning; demonstriert nasale Variation im Familiennamen (nn/ng). Bearer count: 7945.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Henning, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Henning counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #254 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | 4 | Henning | 235 |
| US United States | — | 16,557 | 1 in 20K | 17K | Henning | 398 |
| ZA South Africa | #621 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.8K | — | Henning | 88 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Henning | 142 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Henning | 110 |
| SE Sweden | #852 | ≈980 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 8.5K | Henning | 55 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Henning | 25 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #141 | ≈14 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | — | Henning | 2 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the de-duesseldorf-vornamen register; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Henning is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
habitational name from a farm in Trpndelag. The first element is of uncertain origin, possibly from hein ‘whetstone’; the second element is from Old Norse vin ‘meadow’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
in part the German, Dutch, or Danish name (see 1), but possibly in some cases a variant of Scottish Hanning.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Georg Wilhelm de Genninb. 1676DEnot in their usual nameRussian engineer and military officer
- Thor Henningb. 1894SEswimmer (1894–1967)
- Walter Bruno Henningb. 1908DEGerman linguist (1908 – 1967)
- Eva Henningb. 1920USSwedish actress (1920-2016)
- Rüdiger Henningb. 1943DEGerman rower (1943–2024)
- Doug Henningb. 1947CACanadian illusionist (1947–2000)
- Anne Henningb. 1955USAmerican speed skater
- Thomas Henningb. 1956DEGerman astrophysicist
- Josephine Henningb. 1989DEGerman footballer
- Levin Henningb. 1999DEGerman actor
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)66 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 27 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 8.5K | #444 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 1.9K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 481 | #20,856 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 11 | #20,856 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 7 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2020 | 4 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2025 | 2 | #1 |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Henning come from?
- Patronymic from the personal name Heinrich; plate documents consonant variation n/ng, -k/-g, and genitive/patronymic -s/-sen forms. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus.
- What are other forms of the name Henning?
- In the etymology graph, Rico, Hein and Hendrick are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Henning mean?
- In English, present participle and gerund of hen
- In which country does Henning have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 22 thousand people named Henning in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled henning.
- How common is the name Henning?
- In the United States, the national register counted 16,557 people named Henning in 2010, about 1 in 20 thousand residents.
- How common is Henning compared with other names?
- In Germany, Henning is the 254th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Henning?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/henningThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Henning” — the 254th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.