Larsen
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Larsen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Norway it is the 5th most common surname. In English, recorded as A surname from Norwegian [in turn originating as a patronymic] of Danish and Norwegian origin.
- NONorway1 in 52(measured from records)
- DKDenmark1 in 57
- TNTunisia≈1 in 1.6K
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
- 490 (measured from records)
- 1 in 52 (inferred from the name graph)
≈140,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
patronymic from the personal name Lars, Scandinavian equivalent of Lawrence.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Larsen is read(measured from records)
Larsen is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English61%
A surname from Norwegian [in turn originating as a patronymic] of Danish and Norwegian origin.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Danish18%
a common surname originating as a patronymic
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Norwegian6.9%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Larsen in Norwegian.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Larsen 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 | — | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Larsen | 15 |
| NO Norway | #5 | 104,499 | 1 in 52 | 104K | Larsen | 156 |
| DK Denmark | #7 | 102,287 | 1 in 57 | 102K | Larsen | 252 |
| US United States | #484 | 55,960 | 1 in 5.9K | 56K | Larsen | 490 |
| CA Canada | #454 | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | 1 | Larsen | 176 |
| TN Tunisia | #83 | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Larsen | 5 |
| SE Sweden | #173 | 3,955 | 1 in 2.6K | 4K | Larsen | 84 |
| GL Greenland | — | 927 | 1 in 62 | 927 | — | 19 |
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; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1). 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)
Larsen 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.
patronymic from the personal name Lars, Scandinavian equivalent of Lawrence.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Patronym zu Lars, Kurzform von Laurentius ('Mann aus Laurentum'); Assimilation rs > ss; 862 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Typ mit Schwund von r; meist patronymisches -sen-Suffix, teils auch schwacher patronymischer Genitiv. Häufige Konkurrenzformen in -sen/-son.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Patronymischer Familienname auf -sen. In Dänemark sehr häufig; Bildung aus Lars.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
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)
- Henning Larsenb. 1925DKArchitect (1925-2013)
- Bent Larsenb. 1935DKDanish chess grandmaster and author (1935–2010)
- Preben Elkjærb. 1957DKnot in their usual nameDanish footballer
- Erik Larsenb. 1962USAmerican comics artist
- Thomas Bo Larsenb. 1963DKDanish actor
- Rick Larsenb. 1965USAmerican politician
- Henrik Larsenb. 1966DKDanish football player and manager
- Søren Larsenb. 1981DKDanish footballer
- Samuel Larsenb. 1991USAmerican actor singer model, musician
- Jacob Bruun Larsenb. 1998DKDanish footballer (born 1998)
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 55 sources across 30 countries.
Reference works 7
- 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 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
- 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
- Where does the name Larsen come from?
- patronymic from the personal name Lars, Scandinavian equivalent of Lawrence. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What does the name Larsen mean?
- In English, A surname from Norwegian [in turn originating as a patronymic] of Danish and Norwegian origin.
- In which country does Larsen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 138 thousand people named Larsen in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled larsen.
- Where is Larsen most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Larsen is densest in Norway — about 1 in 52 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Larsen?
- In Norway, the national register counted 104,499 people named Larsen, about 1 in 52 residents.
- How common is Larsen compared with other names?
- In Norway, Larsen is the 5th most common surname of 90,139 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Larsen?
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/larsenThe same 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), 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, “Larsen” — the 5th most common surname in Norway. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.