Hedda
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Scandinavian; a feminine form associated with ‘battle/contention’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/hɛdə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hedda is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Norway than in any other country.
- NONorway1 in 754(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 1.7K
- FIFinland1 in 26K
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.
- Norway (measured from records)
- Sources
- 61 (measured from records)
- 1 in 754 (inferred from the name graph)
7,247 people, 2025
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Scandinavian; a feminine form associated with ‘battle/contention.’
Sources 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
How Hedda is read(measured from records)
Hedda is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- English33%
Scandinavian; a feminine form associated with ‘battle/contention.’
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
- German20%
im 19. Jh. entlehnter weibl. Vom., nordische Kurzform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- Swedish12%
Hedda är ursprungligen en nordisk smekform till → Hedvig. Det gjordes bekant genom Henrik Ibsens skådespel Hedda Gabler (1891). De senaste årtiondena har det blivit ett populärt namn. En känd namnbärare är skådespelerskan Hedda Stiernstedt (f. 1987). I den finlandssvenska almanackan 15 oktober.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
- Norwegian9.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hedda in Norwegian.
- Spanish7.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hedda in Spanish.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Hedda 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 | #554 | 7,247 | 1 in 754 | 26K | Hedda | 61 |
| SE Sweden | #642 | 6,117 | 1 in 1.7K | 6.1K | Hedda | 42 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 646K | — | Hedda | 7 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 555K | — | Hedda | 12 |
| MA Morocco | — | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 79K | — | Hedda | 2 |
| FI Finland | — | 211 | 1 in 26K | 292 | Hedda | 5 |
| DK Denmark | — | 153 | 1 in 38K | 153 | Hedda | 33 |
| LU Luxembourg | #263 | ≈10 est. | ≈1 in 64K | — | Hedda | 8 |
7,247 people counted by SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891), 2025. 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: SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Hedda 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 French, German short form of Hedwig, from Germanic 'combat' + 'fight'.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Nordic pet form of HEDWwic.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Scandinavian: pet form of HEDVIG . It is widely known in the English-speaking world as the name of the eponymous heroine of Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler (1890). Cognate: Italian: Edda .
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)
- Hedda Anderssonb. 1861SESwedish physician (1861-1950)
- Hedda Eulenbergb. 1876DEGerman translator and writer (1876-1960)
- Hedda Hopperb. 1885USAmerican gossip columnist and actress (1885–1966)
- Hedda Dysonb. 1897NZDutch born New Zealand journalist and magazine editor
- Hedda Zinnerb. 1904DEGerman political writer, translator, actress, and journalist (1904–1994)
- Hedda Morrisonb. 1908DEGerman photographer (1908–1991)
- Hedda Sterneb. 1910RORomanian-American artist (1910–2012)
- Hedda Berntsenb. 1976NONorwegian freestyle skier
- Hedda Stiernstedtb. 1987SESwedish actress
- Hedda Virikb. 1989NOcostume designer
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 52 sources across 28 countries.
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- In which country does Hedda have the most bearers?
- In Norway, the national register counted about 7.2 thousand people named Hedda, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hedda.
- Where is Hedda most common?
- Hedda is densest in Norway, where the national register counts about 1 in 754 people carrying it.
- What does the name Hedda mean, and where does it come from?
- Scandinavian; a feminine form associated with ‘battle/contention.’ Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- How do you pronounce Hedda?
- A machine transcription gives /hɛdə/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Hedda?
- In the etymology graph, Jadwiga, Edda and Edwige are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Hedvig.
- Is Hedda a male or female name?
- Hedda is a female 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.
- How common is the name Hedda?
- In Norway, the national register counted 7,247 people named Hedda in 2025, about 1 in 754 residents.
- How common is Hedda compared with other names?
- In Norway, Hedda is the 554th most common given name of 25,788 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hedda?
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/heddaThe 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, “Hedda” — the 554th most common given name in Norway. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.