Henson

surname · Latin script

Meaning: ‘Son of Hem’, a medieval short form of Henry

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/hɛnsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Henson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • CNChina≈1 in 4.4K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 6.9K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7.7K

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈310,000 people, est.

Sources
477 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)

Greenland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

‘Son of Hem’, a medieval short form of Henry.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Henson 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.

Where Henson is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈310,000 est.≈1 in 4.4K—Henson6
US United States#65248,0131 in 6.9K48KHenson477
GB United Kingdom#788≈8,500 est.≈1 in 7.7KlistedHenson190
IT Italy—≈4,900 est.≈1 in 13K—Henson16
PH Philippines—≈4,800 est.≈1 in 23K—Henson74
GL Greenland—421 in 1.4K42—5
VC St. Vincent & Grenadines—321 in 3.2K32—1

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; Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1); Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025). 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)

Henson 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 English, son of Hayne; first attested Hugh Balle Heyneson 1304 Cl; also son of Hendy, cf. HAGAN

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, patronymic from the personal name Henn(e), a short form of Henry 1, Hayne (see Hain 2), or Hendy.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 hAmhsaigh (see Hampson 2).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, A surname originating as a patronymic.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, Jim, US puppeteer

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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)

19201940196019802000Jane Henson, b. 1934Jim Henson, b. 1936Nicky Henson, b. 1945Lisa Henson, b. 1960Brian Henson, b. 1963John Henson, b. 1965Taraji P. Henson, b. 1970Christian Henson, b. 1971Elden Henson, b. 1977John Henson, b. 1990

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)

FormalDear Henson,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 45 sources across 28 countries.

Official registers attesting Henson
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201048K#728
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200047K#669
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202046K#741
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)202142—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)202038—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201937—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201836—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201135—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201734—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201634—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201334—
GL GreenlandStatistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)201234—

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname 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 Henson mean, and where does it come from?
‘Son of Hem’, a medieval short form of Henry. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Henson?
A machine transcription gives /hɛnsən/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Henson have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 315 thousand people named Henson in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled henson.
Where is Henson most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Henson is densest in Greenland — about 1 in 1.4 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Henson?
In the United States, the national register counted 48,013 people named Henson in 2010, about 1 in 6.9 thousand residents.
How common is Henson compared with other names?
In the United States, Henson is the 652nd most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Henson?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/henson

The 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, “Henson” — the 652nd most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Henson parses inside a full name →