Alf
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Norwegian: a male given name from Old Norse, variant of Alv
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ælf/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Alf is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 22K(inferred from the name graph)
- SESweden1 in 504
- NONorway1 in 877
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.
- Sweden (measured from records)
- Sources
- 182 (measured from records)
- 1 in 504 (inferred from the name graph)
20,223 people
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a male given name from Old Norse, variant of Alv
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
How Alf is read(measured from records)
Alf is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- English32%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Alf in English.
- German15%
Kurzform zum Rufnamen Adolf; 969 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
männl. Vom., Kurzform von Namen, die mit »Alf-« beginnen (besonders von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- Norwegian12%
a male given name from Old Norse, variant of Alv
as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Nynorskkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
a male given name from Old Norse
as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Bokmålkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Swedish11%
Alf är ett nordiskt namn, antingen identiskt med förleden → Alf-, Alv- eller en samman dragning av en ursprunglig sammansättning motsvarande → Adolf. I den rikssvenska almanackan 21 juni och i den finlandssvenska 21 februari.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
- Spanish10%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Alf in Spanish.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Alf 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.
20,223 people counted by Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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: Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the de-leipzig-vornamen register; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Alf is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Russian, 4 (17) août, 8 (21) août, 3 (17) octobre, 15 (28) décembre. Eleuthère est son équivalent français. Fêtes : 26 mai, 9 octobre, 20 février, 16 avril.
as a nameRussian 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)
- Alf Landonb. 1887USAmerican politician (1887–1987)
- Alf Rossb. 1899DKDanish jurist (1899-1979)
- Alf Sjöbergb. 1903SESwedish film director (1903-1980)
- Alf Andersenb. 1906NONorwegian ski jumper (1906-1975)
- Alf Prøysenb. 1914NONorwegian singer-songwriter and author (1914–1970)
- Alf Ramseyb. 1920GBEnglish association football player and manager (1920-1999)
- Alf Kjellinb. 1920SESwedish actor and film director (1920–1988)
- Alf Brustellinb. 1940ATAustrian film director (1940-1981)
- Alf Clausenb. 1941USAmerican film and television composer (1941—2025)
- Alf John Hansenb. 1948NONorwegian rower
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)
Attested in 55 sources across 29 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 20K | #213 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 15K | #310 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 8.7K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2013 | 8.2K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2014 | 8K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 6.2K | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 2.4K | #490 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 1.1K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 610 | #439 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navn (1880–present) | 2025 | 15 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2024 | 1 | #1 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2013 | 1 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
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
- What does the name Alf mean, and where does it come from?
- a male given name from Old Norse, variant of Alv Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Alf have the most bearers?
- In Sweden, the national register counted about 20 thousand people named Alf, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled alf.
- Where is Alf most common?
- Alf is densest in Sweden, where the national register counts about 1 in 504 people carrying it.
- How do you pronounce Alf?
- A machine transcription gives /ælf/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Alf a male or female name?
- Alf 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 are other forms of the name Alf?
- In the etymology graph, Alfonso, Fredy and Alfie are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Alfred and Adolf.
- How common is the name Alf?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 20,223 people named Alf, about 1 in 504 residents.
What do you want to know about Alf?
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/alfThe 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, “Alf”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.