Michelsen

surname · Latin script

Meaning: patronymic from the personal name Michel (see Michael)

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Michelsen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • DKDenmark1 in 2.4K(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 60K
  • USUnited States1 in 530K

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.

Denmark (measured from records)

2,422 people

Sources
198 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 2.3K (inferred from the name graph)

Norway

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

patronymic from the personal name Michel (see Michael).

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Where in the world(measured from records)

Michelsen 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.

Where Michelsen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DK Denmark#1982,4221 in 2.4K2.4KMichelsen106
NO Norway#3442,3561 in 2.3K2.4KMichelsen62
DE Germany—≈1,300 est.≈1 in 60K—Michelsen92
BJ Benin#591≈1,300 est.≈1 in 9.7K—Michelsen2
US United States—6281 in 530K1.3KMichelsen198
IS Iceland—≈5 est.≈1 in 65KlistedMichelsen19

2,422 people counted by Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the is-arnastofnun-aettarnofn 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Michelsen is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Míchelsen

  • a separate surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom

    Also written Michélsen

  • Russian surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States, Finland

    Also written Микельсен, Михельсен, Michélsen, Мікельсен

37 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Christian Michelsen, b. 1857Andreas Michelsen, b. 1869Thore Michelsen, b. 1888Alfonso López Michelsen, b. 1913Hans Günter Michelsen, b. 1920Rafael Puyana, b. 1931Poul Michelsen, b. 1944Anne Dorte Michelsen, b. 1958Claudia Michelsen, b. 1969Charis Michelsen, b. 1974

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 30 sources across 17 countries.

Official registers attesting Michelsen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—2.4K#155
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—2.4K#387
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.3K#21,117
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20181.2K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20191.2K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20201.2K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20211.2K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20221.2K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.2K#20,413
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20231.2K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20241.2K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20251.2K—

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 Michelsen mean, and where does it come from?
patronymic from the personal name Michel (see Michael). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
In which country does Michelsen have the most bearers?
In Denmark, the national register counted about 2.4 thousand people named Michelsen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled michelsen.
Where is Michelsen most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Michelsen is densest in Norway — about 1 in 2.3 thousand people — even though Denmark holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Michelsen?
In Denmark, the national register counted 2,422 people named Michelsen, about 1 in 2.4 thousand residents.
How common is Michelsen compared with other names?
In Denmark, Michelsen is the 198th most common surname of 88,366 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Michelsen?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/michelsen

The 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, “Michelsen” — the 198th most common surname in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Michelsen parses inside a full name →