Nelsen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Patronym zu Rufname Cornelius; im Raum Krefeld eher schwacher Genitiv
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈnɛɫsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nelsen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 49K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 63K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 86K
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
- 337 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 16K (inferred from the name graph)
6,825 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Denmark, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Patronym zu Rufname Cornelius; im Raum Krefeld eher schwacher Genitiv.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nelsen 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 | — | 6,825 | 1 in 49K | 6.8K | Nelsen | 337 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈770 est. | ≈1 in 86K | 41 | Nelsen | 36 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈720 est. | ≈1 in 87K | 1 | Nelsen | 4 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Nelsen | 41 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 174K | — | Nelsen | 3 |
| DK Denmark | — | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Nelsen | 16 |
| JO Jordan | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 57K | — | Nelsen | 1 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Nelsen | 3 |
| IS Iceland | — | ≈21 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Nelsen | 1 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #259 | — | — | — | Nelsen | 1 |
6,825 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). 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)
Nelsen is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
patronymic from Nelis.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Nels Nelsenb. 1894NOCanadian ski jumper (1894–1943)
- Chester Nelsenb. 1902UScyclist
- Ancher Nelsenb. 1904USAmerican politician (1904-1992)
- Chester Nelsenb. 1922USAmerican bicycle racer (1922-2018)
- Betty Jo Nelsenb. 1935USAmerican politician
- Bill Nelsenb. 1941USAmerican football player (1941-2019)
- Donald Nelsenb. 1944UScyclist
- Karla Nelsenb. 1965USAmerican bodybuilder
- Ryan Nelsenb. 1977NZNew Zealand association football player and coach
- Rebecca NelsenUSAmerican opera singer
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 17 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6.8K | #5,128 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.5K | #5,218 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6.4K | #5,066 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 41 | #57,456 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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
- How do you pronounce Nelsen?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈnɛɫsən/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Nelsen mean?
- Recorded meaning: Patronym zu Rufname Cornelius; im Raum Krefeld eher schwacher Genitiv.
- In which country does Nelsen have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 6.8 thousand people named Nelsen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nelsen.
- How common is the name Nelsen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,825 people named Nelsen in 2010, about 1 in 49 thousand residents.
- How common is Nelsen compared with other names?
- In Antigua & Barbuda, Nelsen is the 259th most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nelsen?
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/nelsenThe 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, “Nelsen” — the 259th most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.