Nielsen
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: son of Niels, a reduced form of Nickolaus ‘Nicholas’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈniɫsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nielsen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country, where it is the most common surname.
- DKDenmark1 in 26(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 7.8K
- NONorway1 in 58as Nilsen
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Nielsen itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Denmark (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 411 (measured from records)
- 1 in 26 (inferred from the name graph)
222,355 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Nilsson in SE Sweden, BJ Benin, Nielson in US United States and Nilsen in NO Norway.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
son of Niels, a reduced form of Nickolaus ‘Nicholas’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
How Nielsen is read(measured from records)
Nielsen is one spelling over 2 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.
- English42%
son of Niels, a reduced form of Nickolaus ‘Nicholas’
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
A surname from Danish [in turn originating as a patronymic], also used in Norway.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
A.C., TV ratings firm; Erik H.,
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Carl August Danish composer
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Danish41%
a common surname originating as a patronymic
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
Nielsen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DK Denmark | #1 | 222,355 | 1 in 26 | 222K | Nielsen | 277 |
| SE Sweden | #3 | 145,463as Nilsson | 1 in 70 | 145K | Nilsson | 219 |
| NO Norway | #4 | 94,971as Nilsen | 1 in 58 | 95K | Nilsen | 148 |
| US United States | #911 | 42,773 | 1 in 7.8K | 43K | Nielson | 411 |
| BJ Benin | #4 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 325 | — | Nilsson | 10 |
| GL Greenland | #82 | 1,346 | 1 in 43 | 1.3K | Nielsen | 29 |
222,355 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; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, 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)
Nielsen 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.
Danish, Norwegian, and North German (especially SchleswigHolstein): patronymic from the personal name Niels, a reduced form of Nikolaus (see Nicholas) or Cornelius.
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)
- Carl Nielsenb. 1865DKDanish composer
- Asta Nielsenb. 1881DKDanish actress (1881-1972)
- Barry Nelsonb. 1917USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (1917–2007)
- Erik Nielsenb. 1924CACanadian politician (1924-2008)
- Leslie Nielsenb. 1926CACanadian-American actor and comedian (1926–2010)
- Brigitte Nielsenb. 1963DKDanish actress, model and singer
- Connie Nielsenb. 1965DKDanish actress (born 1965)
- Viktorija Čmilytėb. 1983LTnot in their usual nameLithuanian chess player and politician
- Sanna Nielsenb. 1984SESwedish singer and television presenter
- Håvard Nielsenb. 1993NONorwegian football player
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 51 sources across 26 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
- What does the name Nielsen mean, and where does it come from?
- son of Niels, a reduced form of Nickolaus ‘Nicholas’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Nielsen?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈniɫsən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Nielsen have the most bearers?
- In Denmark, the national register counted about 222 thousand people named Nielsen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nielsen.
- Where is Nielsen most common?
- Nielsen is densest in Denmark, where the national register counts about 1 in 26 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Nielsen?
- In Denmark, the national register counted 222,355 people named Nielsen, about 1 in 26 residents.
- How common is Nielsen compared with other names?
- In Denmark, Nielsen is the most common surname of 88,366 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nielsen?
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/nielsenThe 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, “Nielsen” — the most common surname in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.