Anken
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Anken is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United States. In Suriname it is the 5th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: alternative form of Anke (“butter”).
- SRSuriname1 in 1.1K◐
- CHSwitzerland1 in 48K
- CDCongo - Kinshasa1 in 285K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈203 ●
- Sources
- 60 ●
- 1 in 48K ◐
across 3 countries
1.2K records
Official registry-verified
Switzerland
Meaning & origin●
alternative form of Anke (“butter”)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 614 | 606 rec. | — | listed | Anken | 60 |
| DE Germany | — | 207 | 189 rec. | — | — | Anken | 36 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 176△ | 37 rec. | 1 in 48K | 176 | Anken | 21 |
| IT Italy | — | 93 | 102 rec. | — | — | Anken | 2 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 82 | 81 rec. | — | — | Anken | 10 |
| SR Suriname | #5 | 51 | 51 rec. | — | — | Anken | 1 |
| BE Belgium | — | 14 | 11 rec. | 1 in 837K | 14 | Anken | 4 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 13 | 44 rec. | 1 in 1.3M | 13 | Anken | 14 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | — | 9 | 9 rec. | — | — | Anken | 1 |
| JM Jamaica | — | 5 | 5 rec. | — | — | Anken | 1 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English86446%
- German66036%
- Dutch875%
- French623%
- Spanish473%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 864 | 46% |
| German | 660 | 36% |
| Dutch | 87 | 5% |
| French | 62 | 3% |
| Spanish | 47 | 3% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Anken is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Danish, definite singular of anke
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Vietnamese, an alkene
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Breton, angoisse
as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
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●
- Isaac Ankenb. 1885CHSwiss agronomist and politician (1885-1945)
- Olivier Ankenb. 1957CHSwiss ice hockey player
- Cornelia Ankenb. 1967DEGerman author
- Eelco van AnkenITresearcher
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●
Attested in 7 sources across 4 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 176 | #6,956 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 14 | #59,261 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 13 | #58,489 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames (Census 2010 + voter-file supplement) | — | — | — |
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 2026-09-12 data build · 4 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Anken?
- We estimate roughly 203 people bear Anken (counting its spellings and scripts) across 3 countries in our records.
- In which country does Anken have the most bearers?
- Anken is most frequently recorded in the United States, where it is most often spelled anken.
- How common is Anken compared with other names?
- In Suriname, Anken is the 5th most common surname of 376 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Anken mean?
- Recorded meaning: alternative form of Anke (“butter”)
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ankenThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
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, “Anken” — the 5th most common surname in Suriname. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.