Henk
given name · Latin script
Meaning: North German reduced form of ~ HEINRICH
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/hɛnk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Henk is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In the Netherlands it is the 11th most common given name.
- NLNetherlands1 in 1.4K(measured from records)
- BEBelgium≈1 in 7.3K
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 15K
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 Henk 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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 201 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
12,449 named Hank, 2020
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
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)
North German reduced form of ~ HEINRICH.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Henk 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 | — | 12,449as Hank | 1 in 27K | 12K | Henk | 201 |
| NL Netherlands | #11 | 12,274 | 1 in 1.4K | 12K | Henk | 187 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Henk | 59 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 581K | — | Henk | 5 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 48K | 1 | Henk | 101 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 7.3K | 2 | Henk | 78 |
12,449 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling hank. 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: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the de-duesseldorf-vornamen register; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population 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)
Henk is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Patronym zu Kurzformen von Johannes oder Heinrich; 827 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, Patronymischer Familienname zu Johannes; Belegzahl 827.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, männl. Vom., friesische und nieder ländische Koseform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In German, singular imperative of henken
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, alternative form of ynke
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Henk Sneevlietb. 1883NL20th-century Dutch communist politician (1883–1942)
- Henk Badingsb. 1907NLDutch composer born in Java
- Desmond Dossb. 1919USnot in their usual nameAmerican solder, pacifist, and combat medic; recipient of the Purple Heart medal, recipient of the Medal of Honor (1919–2007) Un gran hombre en la vida militar.
- Henk van Ulsenb. 1927NLDutch actor (1927-2009)
- Henk Rogersb. 1953NLDutch computer programmer
- Henk ten Cateb. 1954NLDutch association football player and manager
- Henk Fraserb. 1966NLDutch footballer and manager (born 1966)
- Henk Timmerb. 1971NLDutch association football player (born 1971)
- Henk Grolb. 1985NLDutch judoka
- Ryan Donkb. 1986NLnot in their usual nameSurinamese 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 44 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 12K | #190 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 5.6K | #652 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 172 | #42,079 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 66 | #7,123 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1956 | 5 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2020 | 1 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt München Open Data — Vornamen von Nulljährigen | 2019 | — | — |
| DE Germany | DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen (2007) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
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 Henk mean, and where does it come from?
- North German reduced form of ~ HEINRICH. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What are other forms of the name Henk?
- In the etymology graph, Enrique, Henry and Harry are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Henk?
- A machine transcription gives /hɛnk/ (IPA) for Dutch.
- Is Henk a male or female name?
- Henk 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.
- In which country does Henk have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 12 thousand people named Hank, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Henk most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Henk is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 1.4 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Henk?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 12,274 people named Henk, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Henk compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Henk is the 11th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Henk?
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/henkThe 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, “Henk” — the 11th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.