Karlson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Respelling of a Scandinavian patronymic derived from the personal name Karl, i.e
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkɑɹɫsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Karlson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 155K(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 10K
- EEEstonia≈1 in 12K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 268 (measured from records)
- 1 in 10K (inferred from the name graph)
2,150 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Respelling of a Scandinavian patronymic derived from the personal name Karl, i.e. Swedish Karlsson or Danish and Norwegian Karlsen.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Karlson 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 | 2,150 | 1 in 155K | 2.1K | Karlson | 268 |
| NO Norway | 534 | 1 in 10K | 534 | Karlson | 18 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 179K | — | Karlson | 54 |
| SE Sweden | 309 | 1 in 33K | 309 | Karlson | 33 |
| BR Brazil | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 856K | 35 | — | 1 |
| DK Denmark | 185 | 1 in 32K | 185 | — | — |
| FI Finland | 137 | 1 in 41K | 137 | — | 5 |
| EE Estonia | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 116 | — | 15 |
2,150 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); 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)
Karlson 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.
German; patronymic from the personal name Karl. See also Charles.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Patronymischer Familienname zu Rufname Karl mit -son; auch skandinavisch möglich, Bearer count: 122.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
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)
- Karl Fredrik Karlsonb. 1831SE1831-1900 priest, writer
- Valfrid Karlsonb. 1855SESwedish architect (1855–1935)
- Eedo Karrisoob. 1907EEnot in their usual nameEstonian opera singer (1907-1982)
- Phil Karlsonb. 1908USAmerican film director (1908–1982)
- Paul Karlsonb. 1910DEborn:1910|died:1945|; Karlson, Paul
- Gunnar Karlsonb. 1958SESwedish Army officer
- Nils Karlsonb. 1958SESwedish economist
- Kristine Karlsonb. 1963USAmerican rower
- Patrik Karlsonb. 1968SESwedish actor
- Edith Karlsonb. 1983EEEstonian sculptor (born 1983)
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 29 sources across 15 countries.
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
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 Karlson come from?
- Respelling of a Scandinavian patronymic derived from the personal name Karl, i.e. Swedish Karlsson or Danish and Norwegian Karlsen. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Karlson?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɑɹɫsən/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Karlson mean?
- Recorded meaning: Respelling of a Scandinavian patronymic derived from the personal name Karl, i.e.
- In which country does Karlson have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.1 thousand people named Karlson, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled karlson.
- Where is Karlson most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Karlson is densest in Norway — about 1 in 10 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Karlson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,150 people named Karlson in 2010, about 1 in 155 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Karlson?
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/karlsonThe 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, “Karlson”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.