Karhu
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Karhu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: bear (large omnivorous mammal of the family Ursidae).
- FIFinland1 in 529(measured from records)
- EEEstonia≈1 in 21K
- SESweden1 in 39K
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.
- Finland (measured from records)
- Sources
- 67 (measured from records)
- 1 in 529 (inferred from the name graph)
10,542 people
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
bear (large omnivorous mammal of the family Ursidae)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Karhu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | #216 | 10,542 | 1 in 529 | 11K | Karhu | 67 |
| SE Sweden | — | 263 | 1 in 39K | 263 | Karhu | 18 |
| US United States | — | 134 | 1 in 2.5M | 134 | Karhu | 46 |
| IN India | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 10M | — | Karhu | 16 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈58 est. | ≈1 in 21K | 80 | Karhu | 5 |
| GT Guatemala | — | ≈40 est. | ≈1 in 434K | — | Karhu | 1 |
| NO Norway | — | 26 | 1 in 210K | 26 | Karhu | 4 |
10,542 people counted by DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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: DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the ee-stat-nimed 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)
Karhu is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In krl, synonym of kontie /kondie
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In izh, bear
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Juho Vennolab. 1872FInot in their usual nameFinnish economist and politician (1872-1938)
- Eino Karhub. 1923RUSoviet philologist
- Saara Karhub. 1957FIFinnish politician and journalist
- Iiris Karhub. 1963FIFinnish cyclist
- Kimmo Karhub. 1968FIcyclist
- Minna Karhub. 1971FIFinnish freestyle skier
- Tero Karhub. 1979FIFinnish footballer
- Niko Karhub. 1993FIFinnish ice hockey player
- Satu Tuuli Karhub. 1994FIFinnish actress
- Mika KarhuFIFinnish snooker 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 19 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 11K | #148 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register) | — | 4.7K | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 263 | #3,329 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 134 | #127,494 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 130 | #122,534 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 127 | #136,807 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 80 | #1,011 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 46 | #2,141 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 26 | #37,423 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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 Karhu mean, and where does it come from?
- bear (large omnivorous mammal of the family Ursidae) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Karhu have the most bearers?
- In Finland, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Karhu, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled karhu.
- Where is Karhu most common?
- Karhu is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 529 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Karhu?
- In Finland, the national register counted 10,542 people named Karhu, about 1 in 529 residents.
- How common is Karhu compared with other names?
- In Finland, Karhu is the 216th most common surname of 94,499 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Karhu?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/karhuThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Karhu” — the 216th most common surname in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.