Surname ranking in Denmark

This ranking lists the 400 most common surnames in Denmark, ordered by the number of families that bear them. For each surname you will find its rank, the surname and the number of families; click a name to open the map of its distribution.

First place goes to Jensen, with 227,499 families, ahead of Nielsen (221,498) and Hansen (186,534).

Nineteen of the first twenty names end in -sen, “son of”: Jensen, Nielsen, Hansen and Pedersen come from the given names Jens, Niels, Hans and Peder. They are the legacy of the old patronymic system, fixed as family names in the 19th century. The only exception in the top twenty is Moller (20th), “miller”. Danish letters are written as in the source data (Sorensen, Jorgensen, Moller). Read more on the Surname history page.

On this page: ranks 1 to 100, from Jensen (227,499 families) to Munk (2,401 families).