Staffan
given name · Latin script
Meaning: a male given name, variant of Stefan
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/stafan/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Staffan is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country. In Benin it is the 55th most common given name.
- SESweden1 in 889(measured from records)
- USUnited States≈1 in 1.9M
- BJBenin≈1 in 2K
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.
- Sweden (measured from records)
- Sources
- 129 (measured from records)
- 1 in 889 (inferred from the name graph)
11,481 people
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a male given name, variant of Stefan
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Staffan 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | #201 | 11,481 | 1 in 889 | 11K | Staffan | 129 |
| BJ Benin | #55 | ≈6,600 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Staffan | 8 |
| FI Finland | — | 315 | 1 in 18K | 454 | Staffan | 28 |
| US United States | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 1.9M | 158 | Staffan | 106 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 516K | — | Staffan | 36 |
| NO Norway | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 51K | 86 | Staffan | 22 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈10 est. | ≈1 in 117K | — | Staffan | 5 |
11,481 people counted by Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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: Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Staffan is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, männl. Vom., schwedische Neben form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Swedish form of STEPHEN , now rather less common than STEFAN .
as a word
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)
- Staffan Burenstam Linderb. 1931SESwedish economist and politician (1931–2000)
- Staffan Lingb. 1944SESwedish actor
- Staffan de Misturab. 1947SEItalian-Swedish diplomat
- Staffan Tapperb. 1948SESwedish footballer
- Staffan Schejab. 1950SESwedish pianist
- Ale Möllerb. 1955SEnot in their usual nameSwedish composer and musician
- Staffan Hallerstamb. 1957SESwedish actor
- Staffan Kihlbom Thorb. 1964SESwedish actor
- Bossonb. 1969SEnot in their usual nameSwedish singer-songwriter
- Staffan Kronwallb. 1982SESwedish ice hockey 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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 19 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 158 | #116,774 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 146 | #118,853 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 139 | #116,123 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 42 | #14,611 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name 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 Staffan mean, and where does it come from?
- a male given name, variant of Stefan Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Staffan?
- A machine transcription gives /stafan/ (IPA) for Swedish.
- Is Staffan a male or female name?
- Staffan is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Staffan?
- In the etymology graph, Steven, Stephen and Esteban are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Staffan have the most bearers?
- In Sweden, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Staffan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled staffan.
- Where is Staffan most common?
- Staffan is densest in Sweden, where the national register counts about 1 in 889 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Staffan?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 11,481 people named Staffan, about 1 in 889 residents.
- How common is Staffan compared with other names?
- In Sweden, Staffan is the 201st most common given name of 45,482 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Staffan?
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/staffanThe 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, “Staffan” — the 201st most common given name in Sweden. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.