Sven
given name · Latin script
Meaning: im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/svɛn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sven is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 28K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7.8Kas Swain
- AUAustralia≈1 in 9.5Kas Swain
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sven itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 307 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
25,157 named Swain, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Swain in IN India.
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. nordischer Herkunft (altnord, sveinn »junger
Sources 1
- DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sven is read(measured from records)
Sven 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.
- German75%
im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl. Vom. nordischer Herkunft (altnord, sveinn »junger
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- English6.8%
Norse; youthful
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sven 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 25,157as Swain | 1 in 13K | 25K | Sven | 271 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈8,400 est. | ≈1 in 7.8K | 11K | Sven | 121 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 1 | Sven | 75 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 28K | listed | Sven | 307 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 9.5K | 3 | Sven | 123 |
| IN India | #275 | 1,044as Swain | 1 in 1.3M | 1K | Swain | 173 |
| SE Sweden | — | 787as Svan | 1 in 13K | 95K | Sven | 99 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Sven | 31 |
25,157 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling swain. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)
Sven is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Origine scandinave, signifie « jeune homme ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Old Norse name, 'young man, youth'
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Ragazzo
as a nameIl grande libro dei nomi per bebè. Significato, origini, curiosità. Oltre 7000 nomi per bambine e bambini Significato,…
Swedish: from the Old Norse byname Sveinn ‘boy, lad’. It is now also used in the German-speaking world and to some extent in the United States. Cognates: Danish: Svend. Norwegian: Svein .
as a word
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)
- Blot-Sweynb. 1001not in their usual namepolitician
- Sweyn III of Denmarkb. 1125DKnot in their usual nameKing of Denmark
- Sven Hedinb. 1865SESwedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, travel writer and illustrator (1865-1952)
- Sven Nykvistb. 1922SESwedish cinematographer and film director (1922-2006)
- Olof Palmeb. 1927SEnot in their usual nameSwedish Prime Minister (1969–76, 1982–86)
- Sven Davidsonb. 1928SESwedish tennis player (1928–2008)
- Lasse Hallströmb. 1946SEnot in their usual nameSwedish director and screenwriter
- Sven Hannawaldb. 1974DEGerman former ski jumper and footballer
- Sven Benderb. 1989DEGerman footballer
- Loris Kariusb. 1993DEnot in their usual nameGerman association football player
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 87 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 95K | #29 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 31K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 3K | #5,687 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 31 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 14 | #5,687 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2023 | 6 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 1955 | 3 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2022 | 1 | #2,090 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2016 | 1 | #787 |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2016 | 1 | #787 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Is Sven a male or female name?
- Sven 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.
- How do you pronounce Sven?
- A machine transcription gives /svɛn/ (IPA) for German.
- What are other forms of the name Sven?
- In the etymology graph, Svein and Svend are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Sven have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 25 thousand people named Swain, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Sven?
- In the United States, the national register counted 25,157 people named Swain in 2010, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
- How common is Sven compared with other names?
- In India, Sven is the 275th most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Sven mean?
- Recorded meaning: im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl.
What do you want to know about Sven?
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/svenThe 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, “Sven” — the 275th most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.