Thorsen

surname · Latin script

Meaning: a surname originating as a patronymic

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈθɔɹsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

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

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 107K(measured from records)
  • NONorway1 in 588
  • GLGreenland1 in 1.2K

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.

Norway (measured from records)

9,292 people

Sources
276 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 588 (inferred from the name graph)

Norway

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

a surname originating as a patronymic

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Thorsen 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 Thorsen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NO Norway#6789,2921 in 5889.3KThorsen56
DK Denmark—3,7231 in 1.6K3.7K—5
US United States—3,1211 in 107K3.1KThorsen276
SE Sweden—8391 in 12K839Thorsen15
ID Indonesia—≈760 est.≈1 in 351K—Thorsen6
SK Slovakia—≈280 est.≈1 in 20K—Thorsen4
GL Greenland—481 in 1.2K48—1

9,292 people counted by SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Thorsen is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Norway, Sweden, Canada

    Also written Thorsén

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Thorsén

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Norway, Congo - Kinshasa

    Also written Thorsén

  • Italian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy, Norway

    Also written Thörsen, Thorsén

42 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)

1940196019802000Finn Thorsen, b. 1940Sven-Ole Thorsen, b. 1944Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, b. 1958Bente Thorsen, b. 1958Henning Thorsen, b. 1959Rolf Thorsen, b. 1961Rasmus Thorsen, b. 1965Jan Einar Thorsen, b. 1966Troels Thorsen, b. 1975Robin Thorsen, b. 2000

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)

FormalDear Thorsen,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 28 sources across 17 countries.

Official registers attesting Thorsen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—9.3K#83
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20184.9K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20194.8K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20204.8K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20214.8K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20224.8K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20234.7K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20244.7K—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20254.6K—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—3.7K#95
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.1K#10,324
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020003.1K#9,733

Reference works 3

  • 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 Thorsen mean, and where does it come from?
a surname originating as a patronymic Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Thorsen?
A machine transcription gives /ˈθɔɹsən/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Thorsen have the most bearers?
In Norway, the national register counted about 9.3 thousand people named Thorsen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled thorsen.
Where is Thorsen most common?
Thorsen is densest in Norway, where the national register counts about 1 in 588 people carrying it.
How common is the name Thorsen?
In Norway, the national register counted 9,292 people named Thorsen, about 1 in 588 residents.
How common is Thorsen compared with other names?
In Norway, Thorsen is the 678th most common surname of 90,139 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Thorsen?

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

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, “Thorsen” — the 678th most common surname in Norway. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Thorsen parses inside a full name →