Per
loc · Latin script
Meaning, in Danish: For each; for every
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Per is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 45K(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 62
- NONorway1 in 168
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
- 211 (measured from records)
- 1 in 62 (inferred from the name graph)
165,022 people
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Per- in SE Sweden, NO Norway and Për in DE Germany.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
For each, for every, per.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
How Per is read(measured from records)
Per is one spelling over 4 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.
- Danish39%
For each; for every
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Bulgarian36%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Per in Bulgarian.
- English26%
For each.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Norwegian Nynorsk20%
For each, for every, per.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Per 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 | 165,022 | 1 in 62 | 165K | Per- | 203 |
| NO Norway | 32,539 | 1 in 168 | 78K | Per- | 149 |
| DK Denmark | 27,640 | 1 in 212 | 28K | — | 181 |
| US United States | 7,475 | 1 in 45K | 4.3K | Per | 211 |
| DE Germany | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 27K | 2 | Për | 122 |
| FI Finland | 1,721 | 1 in 3.2K | 4.2K | — | 27 |
| EE Estonia | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 9.7K | 6 | — | 6 |
165,022 people counted by Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population), counting the spelling per. 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); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed); the de-duesseldorf-vornamen 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)
Per is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, männl. Vom., durch Zusammenziehung entstandene nordische Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In kr, s. horse: per bl, stone- horse, stallion; per kurgurl, marc; per kddara, pony; per ngerrna, a large horse, such as the common European horses; per mdgomi, horses of a
as a wordKanuri-English Vocabulary (in African Native Literature)
In kr, cm, s. the leg of cattle, sheep, goats, asses and camels, from the knee downwards (not used of horses or mules.)
as a wordKanuri-English Vocabulary (in African Native Literature)
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)
- Per Teodor Cleveb. 1840SESwedish chemist who discovered holmium and thulium (1840-1905)
- Per Albin Hanssonb. 1885SESwedish politician, Prime Minister of Sweden between 1932–1936 and 1936–1946 (1885–1946)
- Per Bortenb. 1913NO25th Prime Minister of Norway (1913–2005)
- Per Olov Enquistb. 1934SESwedish writer (1934–2020)
- Morten Olsenb. 1949DKnot in their usual nameDanish footballer
- Per Gessleb. 1959SESwedish musician and songwriter
- Andreas Norlénb. 1973SEnot in their usual nameSpeaker of the Riksdag
- Henrik Dorsinb. 1977SEnot in their usual nameSwedish actor and comedian
- Jimmie Åkessonb. 1979SEnot in their usual nameSwedish politician
- Per Mertesackerb. 1984DEGerman 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 63 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 165K | #11 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 78K | #10 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 56K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 33K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 28K | #19 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.3K | #2,996 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 4.2K | #346 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 3.1K | #2,996 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.5K | #11,786 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 1.7K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 231 | #81,772 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 160 | #103,706 |
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
- Where does the name Per come from?
- For each, for every, per. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Per have the most bearers?
- In Sweden, the national register counted about 165 thousand people named Per, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled per-.
- Where is Per most common?
- Per is densest in Sweden, where the national register counts about 1 in 62 people carrying it.
- What does the name Per mean?
- In Danish, For each; for every
- How common is the name Per?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 165,022 people named Per, about 1 in 62 residents.
What do you want to know about Per?
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/perThe 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, “Per”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.