Hessel
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the river name Hessel or ON Hesseln; also related to Hasel
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈhɛsəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hessel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 29K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 319K
- SESweden1 in 20K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 227 (measured from records)
- 1 in 20K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,800 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Sweden
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)
from the river name Hessel or ON Hesseln; also related to Hasel
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hessel 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | Hessel | 116 |
| BR Brazil | 2,264 | 1 in 94K | 2.3K | — | 1 |
| US United States | 1,042 | 1 in 319K | 1.2K | Hessel | 227 |
| SE Sweden | 508 | 1 in 20K | 508 | Hessel | 24 |
| CA Canada | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 136K | — | Hessel | 53 |
| NL Netherlands | 218 | 1 in 79K | 3.5K | Hessel | 84 |
| DK Denmark | 194 | 1 in 30K | 194 | — | 1 |
| BE Belgium | 169 | 1 in 69K | 169 | Hessel | 12 |
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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)
Hessel is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, from a derivative of a Germanic personal name, either from a compound name formed with hadu ‘strife’ as the first element, or from a derivative of Hermann (see Herman) or Hendrik (see Hendry 1).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Toponymischer Familienname; l-Diminutiv zu Hessen/Hesse oder zu gleichlautenden Fluss-, Flur- und Siedlungsnamen, oft mit mhd. hasel/hesel 'Hasel' verbunden; 1140.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, from a pet form of Hermann.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, variant of Hazel.
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)
- Johann Friedrich Christian Hesselb. 1796DEGerman scientist (1796-1872)
- Franz Hesselb. 1880PLGerman writer and translator (1880-1941)
- Helen Hesselb. 1886DEGerman journalist (1886–1982)
- Stéphane Hesselb. 1917FRFrench diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor (1917–2013)
- Lasse Hesselb. 1940DKDanish inventor, author and MD noted for such inventions as the Femidom and the Femi-X pill
- Anne Hesselb. 1947FRresearcher
- Ingo Hesselb. 1955CAInuit Art specialist
- Mats Hesselb. 1961SEOlympic ice hockey player
- Katja Hesselb. 1972DEGerman politician
- Alexander Hesselb. 1988DEGerman association football 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 35 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 2.3K | #4,360 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.2K | #21,381 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.2K | #20,111 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1K | #24,137 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 508 | #1,857 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 218 | #9,538 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 194 | #2,607 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 169 | #9,884 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 9
- 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 given-name tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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
- What does the name Hessel mean, and where does it come from?
- from the river name Hessel or ON Hesseln; also related to Hasel Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Hessel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhɛsəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Hessel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.8 thousand people named Hessel in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hessel.
- Where is Hessel most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Hessel is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 20 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Hessel?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 2,264 people named Hessel, about 1 in 94 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Hessel?
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/hesselThe 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, “Hessel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.