Bals
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Patronym zu Rufname Balthasar; Kontraktionsform, teils Konkurrenz zu Balzo
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bals/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bals is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Norway than in any other country.
- NONorway1 in 27K(measured from records)
- BEBelgium1 in 78K
- NLNetherlands1 in 93K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Norway (measured from records)
- Sources
- 4 (measured from records)
- 1 in 27K (inferred from the name graph)
204 people
Reference-verified
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
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)
Patronym zu Rufname Balthasar; Kontraktionsform, teils Konkurrenz zu Balzo. Belege: 754. Auch Balß.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bals 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | 204 | 1 in 27K | 204 | — | — |
| NL Netherlands | 185 | 1 in 93K | 185 | — | 1 |
| US United States | 176 | 1 in 1.9M | 209 | — | 2 |
| BR Brazil | 155 | 1 in 1.4M | 155 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | 150 | 1 in 78K | 150 | — | — |
| ES Spain | 80 | 1 in 625K | 80 | — | 2 |
| PL Poland | 51 | 1 in 751K | 31 | Bals | 4 |
204 people counted by SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). 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)
Bals 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, patronymischer Familienname zu Rufname Balthasar; 754 Belege
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In Swedish, indefinite genitive singular of bal
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, Audekls, lini uz bala, t. i. izklāti balināšanai
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Viesības
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Balle
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)
- Heinrich Balsb. 1868DEGerman author (1868-1952)
- Hans Balsb. 1917DEGerman politician (1917-2004)
- Gerrit Balsb. 1936NLDutch football player (1936-2016)
- Gregor Balsb. 1936DEGerman actor, screenwriter and translator
- Huub Balsb. 1937NLDutch film festival director (1937-1988)
- Ulrike Balsb. 1972DEGerman violinist
- Anders Balsb. 1973NONorwegian State Secretary to the Minister of Local Government and Modernisation Jan Tore Sanner
- Ante Balsb. 1973NONorwegian journalist and contributing editor
- Jonas Balsb. 1977NOHistorian from Norway
- Berit Anne BalsNOSaami author and translator
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 22 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 209 | #93,963 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 208 | #83,965 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 204 | #7,705 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 185 | #11,170 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 176 | #102,197 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 155 | #45,135 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 150 | #10,977 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 80 | #32,268 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 80 | #32,124 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 31 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 31 | #68,132 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 20 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- How do you pronounce Bals?
- A machine transcription gives /bals/ (IPA) for German.
- What does the name Bals mean?
- Recorded meaning: Patronym zu Rufname Balthasar; Kontraktionsform, teils Konkurrenz zu Balzo.
- In which country does Bals have the most bearers?
- In Norway, the national register counted about 204 people named Bals, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Bals most common?
- Bals is densest in Norway, where the national register counts about 1 in 27 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Bals?
- In Norway, the national register counted 204 people named Bals, about 1 in 27 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Bals?
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/balsThe 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, “Bals”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.