Hrefna
given name · Icelandic · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Hrefna is a given name, most frequently recorded in Iceland. It appears chiefly in Icelandic and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a female raven.
- ISIceland1 in 586◐
- DKDenmark1 in 312K
- NONorway1 in 328K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin●
a female raven
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
| Country | Share of this name | |
|---|---|---|
| IS Iceland | 3,638 | 89% |
| US United States | 223 | 5% |
| DK Denmark | 85 | 2% |
| NO Norway | 73 | 2% |
| GB United Kingdom | 20 | 1% |
≈4,039 recorded bearers across the countries shown (a sample of the full distribution).
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Icelandic3.7K91%
- English1393%
- Danish872%
- Norwegian Bokmål541%
- Croatian281%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Icelandic | 3,709 | 91% |
| English | 139 | 3% |
| Danish | 87 | 2% |
| Norwegian Bokmål | 54 | 1% |
| Croatian | 28 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 10 |
| 2003 | 11 |
| 2011 | 11 |
| 2012 | 11 |
| 2015 | 11 |
| 2016 | 12 |
| 2017 | 13 |
| 2018 | 12 |
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 12 |
SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 10 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Hrefna Róbertsdóttirb. 1961ISIcelandic writer
- Vigdís Hrefna Pálsdóttirb. 1977ISIcelandic actor
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 10 sources across 4 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IS Iceland | Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry) | 2026 | 698 | #220 |
| IS Iceland | Hagstofa Íslands — Given-name frequency by population (2005) | 2005 | 602 | #61 |
| IS Iceland | Hagstofa — population register names 2023 | 2023 | 563 | #77 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 54 | #11,456 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 22 | #4,691 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 21 | #23,832 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2017 | 13 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 12 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2018 | 12 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2016 | 12 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2019 | 11 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2015 | 11 | — |
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 2026-09-12 data build · 29 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Hrefna?
- Our records include 4,039 bearers of Hrefna across 5 countries — a sample of the full distribution.
- In which country does Hrefna have the most bearers?
- Hrefna is most frequently recorded in Iceland.
- Is Hrefna a male or female name?
- Hrefna is a female 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 does the name Hrefna mean?
- Recorded meaning: a female raven
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hrefnaThe 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, “Hrefna”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.