Hafen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: metonymic occupational name for a potter, from Middle High German hafen ‘pot’ (Dictionary of American Family Names)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 3 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ˈhaːfn̩/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Hafen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 1,145 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2010.
- AGAntigua & Barbuda≈1 in 6.4Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 27Kfew records
- CHSwitzerland1 in 35K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 200 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 5.3K (inferred from the name graph)
1,145 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Turks & Caicos Islands, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Hafen
- German:/ˈhaːfn̩/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)metonymic occupational name for a potter, from Middle High German hafen ‘pot’.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Hafen is found
(measured from records)Hafen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 1,145 | 1 in 291K | 1.3K | Hafen | 200 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈460 est. | ≈1 in 180K | — | Hafen | 52 |
| AO Angola | #215 | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 149K | — | Hafen | 1 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 241 | 1 in 35K | 241 | Hafen | 24 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 27K | — | Hafen | 1 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #288 | ≈15 est. | ≈1 in 6.4K | — | Hafen | 1 |
| TC Turks & Caicos Islands | #164 | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Hafen | 1 |
1,145 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (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)Hafen 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, harbor
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, harbour/harbor; port; haven
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, from German hafen 'pot'; also 'harbor'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In enm, alternative form of havene
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ang, past participle of hebban
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)- John Hafenb. 1856USAmerican artist (1856-1910)
- LeRoy R. Hafenb. 1893USAmerican historian
- Margret Hafenb. 1946DEGerman alpine skier
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)9 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 3 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Hafen mean, and where does it come from?
- metonymic occupational name for a potter, from Middle High German hafen ‘pot’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Hafen?
- In German /ˈhaːfn̩/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Hafen?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.1 thousand people named Hafen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hafen. After it come Germany, Angola, Switzerland and New Zealand; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Hafen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,145 people named Hafen in 2010, about 1 in 291 thousand residents.
- How common is Hafen compared with other names?
- In Turks & Caicos Islands, Hafen is the 164th most common surname of 3,662 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hafen?
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/hafenThe 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, “Hafen” — ranked 20396th in the United States (Census Bureau). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.