Thor

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: Anglo-Scandinavian from ON þōr, þūr, probably a shortened form of compounds in þór-, þúr-; first attested Franefilius Tor 1066 DB (L)

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/θɔɹ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Thor is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 82K(measured from records)
  • NONorway1 in 810
  • DKDenmark1 in 1.4K

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈9,600 people, est.

Sources
291 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 810 (inferred from the name graph)

Norway

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

Anglo-Scandinavian from ON þōr, þūr, probably a shortened form of compounds in þór-, þúr-; first attested Franefilius Tor 1066 DB (L)

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

How Thor is read(measured from records)

Thor is one spelling over 3 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.

  • English50%

    Anglo-Scandinavian from ON þōr, þūr, probably a shortened form of compounds in þór-, þúr-; first attested Franefilius Tor 1066 DB (L)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

    A hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, and the protection of mankind.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    Scandinavian god of thunder

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    pers. name, Icelandic

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    Scandinavian; Thunderer

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • Norwegian12%

    a male given name, a less common spelling of Tor

    as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Nynorskkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Danish7.2%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Thor in Danish.

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)

Thor 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.

Where Thor is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈9,600 est.≈1 in 145K—Thor9
NO Norway#7796,7531 in 81017KThor56
DK Denmark—4,2931 in 1.4K4.3K—5
US United States—4,0621 in 82K4KThor291
SE Sweden—3,6251 in 2.8K3.6KThor58
IS Iceland—381 in 9.2K38—4
AG Antigua & Barbuda#298≈6 est.≈1 in 15K—Thor1

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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Thor is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Danish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Iceland, Norway

    Languages: Danish, Icelandic

    Also written Thór

  • a separate given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Norway, United States, Sweden, Canada

    Also written Thór

  • Malay given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Indonesia, United States, Singapore

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Thör

  • Swedish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Sweden, Norway, Canada

    Also written Thór, Thôr

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Thoř, Thór

67 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Thor Henning, b. 1894Thor Johnson, b. 1913Thor Heyerdahl, b. 1914Gunnar Möller, b. 1928Thor Pedersen, b. 1945Thor Bishopric, b. 1963Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, b. 1967Thor Freudenthal, b. 1972Thor Hushovd, b. 1978Thor Kristjansson, b. 1983

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)

InformalHi Thor,

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 71 sources across 31 countries.

Official registers attesting Thor
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—17K#270
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20256.8K—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—4.3K#137
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20204K#4,540
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—3.6K#742
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20201.6K—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present)2017162#48
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202049#4,540
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202544—
IS IcelandÞjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry)202638—
NO NorwaySSB — Navn (1880–present)202520—
NO NorwaySSB — Navn (1880–present)1944——

Reference works 7

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 Thor mean, and where does it come from?
Anglo-Scandinavian from ON þōr, þūr, probably a shortened form of compounds in þór-, þúr-; first attested Franefilius Tor 1066 DB (L) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
How do you pronounce Thor?
A machine transcription gives /θɔɹ/ (IPA) for English.
Is Thor a male or female name?
Thor 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 Thor?
In the etymology graph, Torsten, Thorsten and Torben are forms of the same name in other languages.
How common is the name Thor?
In Norway, the national register counted 6,753 people named Thor in 2025, about 1 in 810 residents.
How common is Thor compared with other names?
In Antigua & Barbuda, Thor is the 298th most common given name of 3,327 given names recorded there.
In which country does Thor have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 9.6 thousand people named Thor in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled thor.
Where is Thor most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Thor is densest in Norway — about 1 in 810 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.

What do you want to know about Thor?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/thor

The 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, “Thor” — the 298th most common given name in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Thor parses inside a full name →