Laan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Dutch 'tree-lined path'; from van der Laan (Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 14 countries · latest register: CBG Familienamenbank, 2007
/laːn/(recorded in a dictionary) Dutch · from Wiktionary
Laan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country: 3,094 people, counted by CBG Familienamenbank in 2007.
- EEEstonia≈1 in 3.6Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 5.6K
- FIFinland1 in 62K
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.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 159 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.6K (inferred from the name graph)
3,094 people, 2007
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Estonia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Laan
- Dutch:/laːn/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Dutch 'tree-lined path'; from van der Laan
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Laan is found
(measured from records)Laan 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | #68 | 3,094 | 1 in 5.6K | 3.1K | Laan | 120 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 126K | — | Laan | 11 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈420 est. | ≈1 in 668K | — | Laan | 25 |
| EE Estonia | #241 | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | 237 | Laan | 33 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 249K | — | Laan | 59 |
| FI Finland | — | 90 | 1 in 62K | 90 | Laan | 3 |
| NO Norway | — | 42 | 1 in 130K | 42 | — | 5 |
3,094 people counted by CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007), 2007. 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: CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); the ee-stat-nimed register; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)Laan 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 Dutch, lane, avenue
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Wohnstättenname zu einer Flur-/Lagebezeichnung. 39 Belege; univerbierte Form.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In Filipino, in reserve; reserved for the future (or for someone)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In tbk, lightness, as in weight, mood
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In nds (Germany), alternative form of Lane
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)- Dick Laanb. 1894NLDutch writer and film pioneer (1894–1973)
- Harry van der Laanb. 1936NLDutch astrophysicist
- Marta Laanb. 1985EEEstonian actress (born 1985)
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)23 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 14 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Laan mean, and where does it come from?
- Dutch 'tree-lined path'; from van der Laan Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Laan?
- In Dutch /laːn/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Laan?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 3.1 thousand people named Laan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled laan. After it come South Africa, Indonesia, Estonia and Germany; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Laan?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 3,094 people named Laan in 2007, about 1 in 5.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Laan compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Laan is the 68th most common surname of 284,143 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Laan?
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/laanThe 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, “Laan” — ranked 347th in the Netherlands (CBG Familienamenbank, 2007). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.