Hannu
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Finnish: a male given name from Late Latin Iōhannēs [in turn from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), in turn from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yôḥānān, “God is gracious”)], variant of Hannes or Johannes, equivalent t
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/hɑnːu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hannu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country, where it is the 17th most common given name.
- FIFinland1 in 178(measured from records)
- USUnited States≈1 in 1.8M
- SESweden1 in 9.9K
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.
- Finland (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 129 (measured from records)
- 1 in 178 (inferred from the name graph)
31,351 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Finland
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)
- Late Latin Iōhannēs[in(measured from records)
- Koine GreekἸωάννηςIōánnēs(measured from records)
- Biblical HebrewיוֹחָנָןYôḥānān“God is gracious”(measured from records)
a male given name from Late Latin Iōhannēs [in turn from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), in turn from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yôḥānān, “God is gracious”)], variant of Hannes or Johannes, equivalent to English Johnny or Hansel
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
How Hannu is read(measured from records)
Hannu is one spelling over 4 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.
- Finnish38%
a male given name from Late Latin Iōhannēs [in turn from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), in turn from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yôḥānān, “God is gracious”)], variant of Hannes or Johannes, equivalent to English Johnny or Hansel
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Chinese11%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hannu in Chinese.
- Hindi10%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hannu in Hindi.
- English8.9%
Finnish form of John
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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)
Hannu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | #17 | 31,351 | 1 in 178 | 44K | Hannu | 129 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,033 | 1 in 9.9K | 1K | Hannu | 48 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 344K | 1 | Hannu | 48 |
| US United States | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 1.8M | 183 | Hannu | 104 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 2.1M | — | Hannu | 11 |
| EE Estonia | #538 | ≈92 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 11 | Hannu | 7 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈66 est. | ≈1 in 127K | — | Hannu | 14 |
| NO Norway | — | ≈59 est. | ≈1 in 92K | 60 | Hannu | 14 |
31,351 people counted by DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register). 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: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); the de-leipzig-vornamen register; Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Hannu 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 Swedish, Hannu är en finsk form av Hannus, ursprungligen en tysk smekform till → Johannes. Hannu förekommer som binamn i Finland redan under 1500-talet.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Hausa, hand
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
A Finnish form of JOHN .
as a word
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)
- Hannu Mikkolab. 1942FIFinnish rally driver, winner of the 1983 World Rally Championship for Drivers (1942–2021)
- Hannu Siitonenb. 1949FIathletics competitor
- Puntti Valtonenb. 1961FInot in their usual nameFinnish actor and guitarist
- P-K Keränenb. 1964FInot in their usual nameFinnish musician
- Hannu Lintub. 1967FIFinnish conductor
- Hannu Salonenb. 1972FIFinnish film director and screenwriter
- Hannu Tihinenb. 1976FIFinnish footballer
- Hannu Manninenb. 1978FIFinnish Nordic combined skier and airline pilot
- Hannu Rajaniemib. 1978FIFinnish businessman and writer
- Hannu Kurub. 1993FIFinnish ice hockey 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
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 26 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 44K | #45 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 31K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 1999 | 1.1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2000 | 1.1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2001 | 1.1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2002 | 1.1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2003 | 1.1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2004 | 1.1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2005 | 1K | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 1K | #1,655 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2006 | 1K | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2007 | 1K | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Hannu mean, and where does it come from?
- a male given name from Late Latin Iōhannēs [in turn from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs), in turn from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yôḥānān, “God is gracious”)], variant of Hannes or Johannes, equivalent t… Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Hannu?
- In the etymology graph, John, Juan and Ivan are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Joni and Janne.
- How do you pronounce Hannu?
- A machine transcription gives /hɑnːu/ (IPA) for Finnish.
- Is Hannu a male or female name?
- Hannu 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.
- In which country does Hannu have the most bearers?
- In Finland, the national register counted about 31 thousand people named Hannu, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hannu.
- Where is Hannu most common?
- Hannu is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 178 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Hannu?
- In Finland, the national register counted 31,351 people named Hannu, about 1 in 178 residents.
- How common is Hannu compared with other names?
- In Finland, Hannu is the 17th most common given name of 19,056 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hannu?
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/hannuThe 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, “Hannu” — the 17th most common given name in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.