Hillen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the personal name Hillin, a derivative of a Germanic personal name formed with hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’ as the first element
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈhɪɫən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hillen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 38K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 225K
- MLMali≈1 in 13K
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)
- Sources
- 228 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)
≈19,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Mali, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the personal name Hillin, a derivative of a Germanic personal name formed with hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’ as the first element.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hillen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 73K | — | Hillen | 1 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Hillen | 104 |
| ML Mali | #248 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Hillen | 1 |
| US United States | — | 1,476 | 1 in 225K | 1.5K | Hillen | 228 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 678 | 1 in 25K | 678 | Hillen | 42 |
| BE Belgium | — | 538 | 1 in 22K | 538 | Hillen | 30 |
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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); 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)
Hillen 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.
Swedish (Hillen); ornamental name composed of an unexplained first element -(- the adjectival suffix -en, from Latin -enius.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Genitivbildungen auf -en; patronymisch zu männlichen Rufnamen, auch zu weiblichen wie Hildegund. Morphologisches Suffix -en.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In German, schwacher Genitiv zu Hille; am Westrand von Deutschland (989). Konsonantenvariation: ld > ll mit -en.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
variant of Hillian.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
variant of Hilling.
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)
- Solomon Hillen, Jr.b. 1810USAmerican politician (1810-1873)
- Ernest Hillenb. 1901CACanadian writer and journalist
- Hans Hillenb. 1947NLDutch politician
- Wolfgang Hillenb. 1948DEGerman microbiologist (1948–2010)
- Michael Hillenb. 1953DEGerman author
- Elsemiek Hillenb. 1959NLfield hockey player
- Seán Hillenb. 1961IEIrish artist
- Thomas Hillenb. 1966DEPh.D. Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen 1995
- Boris Hillenb. 1968DEGerman author
- Jack Hillenb. 1986USAmerican 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 26 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.5K | #18,640 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.2K | #21,230 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.1K | #23,536 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 678 | #2,693 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 538 | #2,783 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Noms de famille (family names) | — | 501 | #3,051 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Hillen mean, and where does it come from?
- from the personal name Hillin, a derivative of a Germanic personal name formed with hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’ as the first element. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Hillen?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhɪɫən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Hillen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 19 thousand people named Hillen in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hillen.
- How common is the name Hillen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,476 people named Hillen in 2010, about 1 in 225 thousand residents.
- How common is Hillen compared with other names?
- In Mali, Hillen is the 248th most common surname of 7,873 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hillen?
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/hillenThe 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, “Hillen” — the 248th most common surname in Mali. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.