Lars
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A male given name from Latin occasionally given to Anglophones
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/laʁs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Lars is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country, where it is the 10th most common given name.
- SESweden1 in 45(measured from records)
- DKDenmark1 in 138
- NONorway1 in 189
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)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 322 (measured from records)
- 1 in 45 (inferred from the name graph)
224,538 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
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)
A male given name from Latin occasionally given to Anglophones.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
How Lars is read(measured from records)
Lars is one spelling over 5 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.
- German35%
männl. Vom., schwedische, dänische und norwegische Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- Danish22%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Lars in Danish.
- Swedish13%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Lars in Swedish.
- English12%
A male given name from Latin occasionally given to Anglophones.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Norwegian5.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Lars in Norwegian.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Lars 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | #10 | 224,538 | 1 in 45 | 225K | Lars | 204 |
| BJ Benin | #22 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 296 | — | Lars | 9 |
| DK Denmark | #5 | 42,596 | 1 in 138 | 43K | Lars | 239 |
| NO Norway | #6 | 28,943 | 1 in 189 | 79K | Lars | 157 |
| NL Netherlands | #147 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 21K | Lars | 132 |
224,538 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); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017). 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)
Lars 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, forme scandinave de Laurent, du latin Laurentius. Fête: 10 août, saint Laurent.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Scandinavian form of LAURENCE . This was the second commonest male name in Denmark in 1965 and the third commonest in Sweden in 1973.
as a word
In Welsh, alternative form of larts (“larch trees”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, Naudas vienība Gruzijā
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Lars Onsagerb. 1903NOAmerican physical chemist and theoretical physicist (1903-1976)
- Lars Peter Hansenb. 1952USAmerican economist
- Lars von Trierb. 1956DKDanish film director and screenwriter (born 1956)
- Lars Ulrichb. 1963DKDanish musician (born 1963)
- Yngwie Malmsteenb. 1963SEnot in their usual nameSwedish guitarist
- Lars Løkke Rasmussenb. 1964DK25th Prime Minister of Denmark
- Lars Eidingerb. 1976DEGerman actor
- Nick Heidfeldb. 1977DEnot in their usual nameGerman racing driver
- Lars Klingbeilb. 1978DEGerman politician (SPD), SPD Federal Chairman, Member of the Bundestag, Federal Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor from Germany since 2025
- Lars Benderb. 1989DEGerman footballer (born 1989)
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 86 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 225K | #4 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 83K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 79K | #8 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 43K | #3 |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 29K | — |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 21K | #148 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present) | 1994 | 154 | #46 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navn (1880–present) | 2025 | 72 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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 Lars mean, and where does it come from?
- A male given name from Latin occasionally given to Anglophones. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Lars a male or female name?
- Lars 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 Lars have the most bearers?
- In Sweden, the national register counted about 225 thousand people named Lars, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lars.
- Where is Lars most common?
- Lars is densest in Sweden, where the national register counts about 1 in 45 people carrying it.
- How do you pronounce Lars?
- A machine transcription gives /laʁs/ (IPA) for German.
- What are other forms of the name Lars?
- In the etymology graph, Larry, Lawrence and Laurie are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Lars?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 224,538 people named Lars, about 1 in 45 residents.
- How common is Lars compared with other names?
- In Sweden, Lars is the 10th most common given name of 45,482 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lars?
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/larsThe 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, “Lars” — the 10th most common given name in Sweden. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.