Holger
given name · Latin script
Meaning: im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/hɔlɡɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Holger is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 96th most common given name.
- DEGermany≈1 in 442(inferred from the name graph)
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 5.7K
- SESweden1 in 1.2K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 278 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 442 (inferred from the name graph)
≈180,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl. Vom. dänischer/schwedischer Herkunft (altnord. hölrnr »Insel« + altnord, geirr »Speer«). Eine dänische Heldengestalt ist Holger Danske, der nach der Sage aus dem Schlaf erwacht und in den Kampf zieht, wenn Dänemark in
Sources 1
- DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Holger 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 | #96 | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 442 | 2 | Holger | 278 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 12,263 | 1 in 1.4K | 12K | Holger | 23 |
| SE Sweden | — | 8,797 | 1 in 1.2K | 8.8K | Holger | 43 |
| DK Denmark | — | 4,156 | 1 in 1.4K | 4.2K | — | 4 |
| CH Switzerland | #642 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | 4 | Holger | 61 |
| EE Estonia | #870 | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | 297 | Holger | 28 |
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: the de-leipzig-vornamen register; INEC — civil registry names; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); the ee-stat-nimed register. 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)
Holger 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.
In Swedish, Holger är ett nordiskt namn, sammansatt av fornsvenskt holmber ’holme’ och → -ger. Den kontinentale sagohjälten Holger Danske har i danska medeltidsballader knutits till Danmark, där han blivit en nationalsymbol och givit spridning åt namnet. I den rikssvenska almanackan 30 mars och i den finlandssvenska 2 augusti.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Parecido a una lanza
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
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)
- Holger Nielsenb. 1866DKDanish sportsman (1866–1955)
- Holger Thieleb. 1878USDanish American astronomer (1878–1946)
- Holger Crafoordb. 1908SESwedish businessman (1908–1982)
- Holger J Hansenb. 1924DKactor from Denmark (1924-2013)
- Rosa von Praunheimb. 1942DEnot in their usual nameGerman film director (1942–2025)
- Holger Hieronymusb. 1959DEGerman footballer
- Prince Joachim of Denmarkb. 1969DKnot in their usual nameDanish prince (born 1969)
- Holger Badstuberb. 1989DEGerman association football player (born 1989)
- Holger Runeb. 2003DKDanish tennis player (born 2003)
- Lucas Bergvallb. 2006SEnot in their usual nameSwedish association football player (born 2006)
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 58 sources across 28 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 12K | #170 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 8.8K | #433 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 4.2K | #143 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 1.8K | — |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 297 | #392 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present) | 2024 | 244 | #28 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 13 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2025 | 2 | #2 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2020 | 1 | — |
| EE Estonia | Siseministeerium — population register name list 2023 | 2023 | — | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt München Open Data — Vornamen von Nulljährigen | 2016 | — | — |
| DE Germany | DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen (2007) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- How do you pronounce Holger?
- A machine transcription gives /hɔlɡɐ/ (IPA) for German.
- Is Holger a male or female name?
- Holger is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Holger mean?
- Recorded meaning: im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl.
- In which country does Holger have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 181 thousand people named Holger in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled holger.
- How common is the name Holger?
- In Ecuador, the national register counted 12,263 people named Holger in 2024, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Holger compared with other names?
- In Germany, Holger is the 96th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Holger?
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/holgerThe 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, “Holger” — the 96th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.