Olesen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: a surname originating as a patronymic
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Olesen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Norway than in any other country. In Denmark it is the 26th most common surname.
- DKDenmark1 in 137as Olsen(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 5.6Kas Olsen
- CACanada≈1 in 88K
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 Olesen 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.
- Norway (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 215 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 88K (inferred from the name graph)
134,046 named Olsen
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
a surname originating as a patronymic
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Olesen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | — | 134,046as Olsen | 1 in 41 | 134K | Olesen | 29 |
| US United States | — | 59,356as Olsen | 1 in 5.6K | 59K | Olesen | 215 |
| DK Denmark | #26 | 42,709as Olsen | 1 in 137 | 43K | Olesen | 174 |
| SE Sweden | — | 2,873as Olsen | 1 in 3.6K | 2.9K | Olesen | 41 |
| GL Greenland | — | 1,704as Olsen | 1 in 34 | 1.7K | — | 9 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 88K | 2 | Olesen | 47 |
134,046 people counted by SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population), counting the spelling olsen. 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: SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); 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); Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Kjeld Olesenb. 1932DKDanish politician (1932–2024)
- Jens Olesenb. 1946Danish biologist
- Annette K. Olesenb. 1965DKDanish film director
- Henrik Noél Olesenb. 1968Danish actor
- Ole Birk Olesenb. 1972DKDanish politician
- Allan Arenfeldt Olesenb. 1982DKDanish footballer
- Ronja Mannov Olesenb. 1987DKDanish actress
- Thorbjørn Olesenb. 1989DKDanish professional golfer
- Steve Olesenb. 1993badminton player
- Mathias Olesenb. 2001LULuxembourgish association 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 28 sources across 16 countries.
Reference works 5
- 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 Olesen mean, and where does it come from?
- a surname originating as a patronymic Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Olesen have the most bearers?
- In Norway, the national register counted about 134 thousand people named Olsen, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Olesen?
- In Norway, the national register counted 134,046 people named Olsen, about 1 in 41 residents.
- How common is Olesen compared with other names?
- In Denmark, Olesen is the 26th most common surname of 88,366 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Olesen?
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/olesenThe 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, “Olesen” — the 26th most common surname in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.