Names of Denmark DK

Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) records Anne as the commonest given name in Denmark and Nielsen as the commonest surname; the names that most distinguish Denmark from the rest of the world are Jensen, Andersen and Pedersen.

Written in Danish.

Population
5.9M
Official registers
2
Name forms recorded
27K
ABuilt from 2 official registers, 27,269 name forms in our corpus, 14 cited works.

Official registers for given names and surnames, plus a written account of the naming system.

The account of the naming system rests on encyclopaedia and genealogy sources; it has not yet been checked against onomastic literature.

fewerlarger share
Where the names most characteristic of Denmark are borne outside it — the same spelling, counted in our record corpus. Shares are of all bearers of those names anywhere, Denmark included.

How names work in Denmark

2 naming traditions are in use in Denmark, listed in the order of the country's languages. They are separate systems, not variants of one, and each has its own page.

The most common names in Denmark

Counts everyone resident in the country · authority tier 2
Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) — 18,055 given names counted over residents, girls only, as the register publishes them.
#NameBearers recordedOur rank
1Anne43K19
2Mette38K22
3Kirsten35K—
4Hanne34K30
5Anna33K—
6Helle33K29
7Maria30K—
8Susanne30K32
9Lene29K38
10Marianne26K—
11Camilla24K53
12Lone24K—
13Louise24K39
14Charlotte23K—
15Pia23K49
16Tina23K48
17Emma23K—
18Ida23K—
19Gitte22K—
20Julie22K83

Where the two lists disagree

25 of Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)'s top 25 given names sit five or more places away in our record corpus. Neither ranking is wrong; they count different people.

Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)Across all recordsanne: 1 → 19 · ranks lower across all records1. anne19mette: 2 → 22 · ranks lower across all records2. mette22kirsten: 3 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country3. kirstennot rankedhanne: 4 → 30 · ranks lower across all records4. hanne30anna: 5 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country5. annanot rankedhelle: 6 → 29 · ranks lower across all records6. helle29maria: 7 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country7. marianot rankedsusanne: 8 → 32 · ranks lower across all records8. susanne32lene: 9 → 38 · ranks lower across all records9. lene38marianne: 10 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country10. mariannenot rankedcamilla: 11 → 53 · ranks lower across all records11. camilla53lone: 12 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country12. lonenot rankedlouise: 13 → 39 · ranks lower across all records13. louise39charlotte: 14 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country14. charlottenot rankedpia: 15 → 49 · ranks lower across all records15. pia49tina: 16 → 48 · ranks lower across all records16. tina48emma: 17 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country17. emmanot rankedida: 18 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country18. idanot rankedgitte: 19 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country19. gittenot rankedjulie: 20 → 83 · ranks lower across all records20. julie83jette: 21 → 60 · ranks lower across all records21. jette60rikke: 22 → 52 · ranks lower across all records22. rikke52bente: 23 → 77 · ranks lower across all records23. bente77karen: 24 → 73 · ranks lower across all records24. karen73sofie: 25 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country25. sofienot ranked
Hover a line for what is available to explain that row.
Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) on the left; every record we hold for Denmark on the right. A dashed line means the name is not in our top ranks for this country at all.

The register counts one population in one year — everyone it enumerates, once. Our corpus counts records: historical registers going back decades, the diaspora, business and place records, and several generations of births. A name that was common two generations ago outranks a name common today; a name whose spelling scatters across sources (diacritics dropped, transliterated differently) loses ground, because only its dominant spelling is ranked.

Characteristic of Denmark

Not the most common names — the most distinctive ones. A name appears here when Denmark holds a larger share of its bearers than the world does, weighted by how much of the country's whole name distribution it accounts for.

HenrikLarsMortenChristianJesperSørenJørgenAndersJensOleNielsClausKimMetteMadsPeterRasmusHellePoulLene
Sized by how much of the difference between Denmark's name distribution and the world's this name accounts for. Hover for its share here against its share worldwide.(measured from records)

Over time

SofieEmmaJulieCamillaIda198520241,412
Danmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present), 1985–2024 (40 years). The line is that register's own figure for each year — not a total across registers, which would count the same people twice. The publisher labels this series “flow”.

Up to five names at a time.

Scripts & spelling

Nielsensurname(measured from records)
Jensensurname(measured from records)
Hansensurname(measured from records)
Andersensurname(measured from records)
Pedersensurname(measured from records)
The best-attested names in Denmark, in the spelling our records use there. Where a Latin spelling is also attested it is shown beneath — a spelling from the corpus, not a machine romanisation.

Countries whose names look alike

Measured as the overlap between each country's top 300 given-name forms, weighted by how common each is — the fuzzy-set approach of Lauc (2024), on a truncated inventory.

Registers & sources

Official registers

Cited works

Behind this page's own account — its one-line answer, its explanation of why the rankings differ, and the notes on its registers. Each naming tradition cites its own sources on its page. Not yet checked against onomastic literature.

About this data

Official figures are reproduced from the register named beside them, at the year named beside them, and are never combined across registers. The "across all records" ranking counts records in our own corpus — historical registers, the diaspora, business and place records — and is not a population count. Bearer estimates are omitted where a name accounts for more than a quarter of a country's records, because the estimate is not defensible there. Names listed by reference works and licensed name dictionaries are cited as attesting a name; their figures are not published.

Data snapshot: 2026-10-09.

Questions

What is the most common given name in Denmark?
Anne, according to Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts), with 43,021 bearers recorded among girls.
What is the most common surname in Denmark?
Nielsen, according to Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts), with 222,355 bearers recorded.
Why do sources disagree about the commonest name in Denmark?
Because they count different people. Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) counts one population once, and its commonest given name is Anne. Our corpus counts every record we hold — historical registers, the diaspora, decades of births — and its commonest is Jan. Both are on this page, each with its denominator.
Is there one naming system in Denmark?
No — 2 are described on this page (Faroese, Scandinavian), and they are separate systems rather than variants of one.

Cite this page: Mondonomo, “Names of Denmark”, https://mondonomo.ai/names/DK (data snapshot 2026-10-09). Official figures from Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts).