Widen

surname · Latin script

Meaning: To become wide or wider (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 12 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020

/ˈwaɪdən/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Widen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country: 2,648 people, counted by Skatteverket.

  • SESweden1 in 3.9K(measured from records)
  • FIFinland1 in 38K
  • NONorway1 in 55K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Sweden (measured from records)

2,648 people

Record sources
198 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

1 in 3.9K (inferred from the name graph)

Sweden

measured from records inferred from the name graph

How to pronounce Widen

  • English:/ˈwaɪdən/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
  • Swedish:/videːn/(machine-generated) model-generated

Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

To become wide or wider.

Cited for this meaning 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

Where the surname Widen is found

(measured from records)

Widen 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 Widen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
SE Sweden2,6481 in 3.9K2.6KWiden35
US United States6471 in 514K650Widen198
FI Finland1451 in 38K145—9
GB United Kingdom≈110 est.≈1 in 633K17Widen23
CA Canada≈100 est.≈1 in 413K—Widen30
NO Norway1001 in 55K100—3
DK Denmark261 in 226K26——
AG Antigua & Barbuda≈1 est.≈1 in 74K—Widen1

2,648 people counted by Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population), counting the spelling widén. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)

Widen is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Widén

  • Swedish surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, United States, Denmark, Norway

    Languages: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish

    Also written Widén, Widèn, Widėn

  • Finnish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Finland

    Also written Widén

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Widén

  • Swahili surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States

    Also written Widén

  • Polish surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden

    Also written Widén

31 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.

Other recorded senses

(measured from records)

Widen 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.

  • In na, Sweden (a country in Scandinavia in Northern Europe)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)
18801900192019401960Lew Ney, b. 1886Bernard A. Widen, b. 1920Gregory Widen, b. 1958

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 Mr Widen,
InformalHi Widen,

Evidence

(measured from records)

19 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 12 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Widen mean, and where does it come from?
To become wide or wider. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Widen?
It depends on the language: in English /ˈwaɪdən/ (Wiktionary); in Swedish /videːn/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
Which countries have the most people with the surname Widen?
In Sweden, the national register counted about 2.6 thousand people named Widen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled widen. After it come United States, Finland, United Kingdom and Canada; the country table on this page ranks them.
Where is Widen most common?
Widen is densest in Sweden, where the national register counts about 1 in 3.9 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Widen?
In Sweden, the national register counted 2,648 people named Widen, about 1 in 3.9 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Widen?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Widen” — ranked 381st in Sweden (Skatteverket). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Widen parses inside a full name →