Heiden
surname · Latin script
Meaning: nickname from Middle High German heiden ‘heathen’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈhaɪdən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Heiden is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- DKDenmark1 in 44K(measured from records)
- NLNetherlands1 in 178K
- BRBrazil1 in 334K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Heiden itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 31 (measured from records)
- 1 in 44K (inferred from the name graph)
37,451 named Hayden, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Haden in US United States and Heijden in NL Netherlands.
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)
nickname from Middle High German heiden ‘heathen’. Old High German heidano, apparently a derivative of heida ‘heath’, modeled on Latin paganus (see Paine). The nickname was sometimes used to refer to a Christian knight who had been on a Crusade to fight in the Holy Land.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Heiden 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 | 37,451as Hayden | 1 in 8.9K | 92K | Haden | 14 |
| BR Brazil | 633 | 1 in 334K | 633 | — | — |
| DK Denmark | 134 | 1 in 44K | 134 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | 114as Heyden | 1 in 103K | 114 | — | 4 |
| NL Netherlands | 97 | 1 in 178K | 201 | Heijden | 6 |
| NO Norway | 62as Hayden | 1 in 88K | 144 | — | 1 |
| CR Costa Rica | 29as Heyden | 1 in 176K | 29 | — | — |
37,451 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010, counting the spelling hayden. 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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. 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)
Heiden 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, of uncertain origin; possibly a shortened form of any of various ornamental names formed with German Heide- ‘heath’, for example Heidenberg, Heidenkorn, Heidenkrug, Heidenwurzel.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, habitational name from any of several places so named, for example in Westphalia and Switzerland.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, genitive/dative/accusative singular of Heide
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Zu mhd. heiden / mnd. heiden(e) ‚Nichtchrist‘; auch als Kurzform zu Heidenreich. 1502 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, shortened form of Vanderheyden.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Elizaveta Nikolaevna Zubovab. 1833RUnot in their usual name(1833-1894)
- Friedrich August Heidenb. 1887DEGerman politician (1887-1954)
- Konrad Heidenb. 1901DEGerman journalist and historian (1901–1966)
- Erhard Heidenb. 1901DEGerman Nazi and 3rd Reichsführer-SS of the Schutzstaffel (1901-1933)
- Bernhard Heidenb. 1910USGerman composer
- Eric Heidenb. 1958USAmerican speed skater
- Beth Heidenb. 1959USAmerican sportswoman
- Ira Heidenb. 1966USAmerican actor
- Bo Heidenb. 1967USbasketball player (born 1967)
- Steve Heidenb. 1976USAmerican football player and coach (born 1976)
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 32 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.6K | #11,938 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.6K | #11,250 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.6K | #11,742 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 633 | #13,782 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 134 | #4,064 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 97 | #19,594 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 18 | #44,414 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 14 | #58,516 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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
- Where does the name Heiden come from?
- nickname from Middle High German heiden ‘heathen’. Old High German heidano, apparently a derivative of heida ‘heath’, modeled on Latin paganus (see Paine). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Heiden?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhaɪdən/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Heiden mean?
- Recorded meaning: nickname from Middle High German heiden ‘heathen’.
- In which country does Heiden have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 37 thousand people named Hayden, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Heiden most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Heiden is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 44 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Heiden?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 633 people named Heiden, about 1 in 334 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Heiden?
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/heidenThe 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, “Heiden”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.