Jansson
surname · Swedish · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Jansson is a surname, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country, where it is the 13th most common surname. It appears chiefly in Swedish and Finnish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: patronymic from the personal name Jan, a reduced form of Johannes (see John).
- SESweden1 in 243◐
- FIFinland1 in 724
- NONorway1 in 4.2K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈54K ●
- Sources
- 164 ●
- 1 in 43 ◐
across 12 countries
34K records
Official registry-verified
Åland Islands
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Jaensson in IE Ireland.
Meaning & origin●
patronymic from the personal name Jan, a reduced form of Johannes (see John).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | #13 | 41,915 | 27K rec. | 1 in 243 | 42K | Jansson | 136 |
| FI Finland | #231 | 7,691△ | 538 rec. | 1 in 724 | 7.7K | Jansson | 43 |
| US United States | — | 1,463 | 3.5K rec. | 1 in 227K | 1.5K | Jansson | 164 |
| NO Norway | #693 | 1,302△ | 390 rec. | 1 in 4.2K | 1.3K | Jansson | 42 |
| AX Åland Islands | #4 | 611△ | 4 rec. | 1 in 43 | 611 | Jansson | 11 |
| DE Germany | — | 512 | 478 rec. | — | — | Jansson | 51 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 466 | 249 rec. | — | — | Jansson | 45 |
| DK Denmark | — | 262△ | 129 rec. | 1 in 22K | 262 | Jansson | 54 |
| BJ Benin | #44 | 201 | 204 rec. | — | — | Jansson | 4 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 183 | 96 rec. | 1 in 94K | 183 | Jansson | 25 |
| CA Canada | — | 149 | 147 rec. | — | — | Jansson | 27 |
| BR Brazil | — | 117 | — | 1 in 1.8M | 117 | — | — |
Roughly 42K people in Sweden bear this name (about 1 in 243). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Swedish38K40%
- Finnish29K30%
- English13K14%
- Spanish1.6K2%
- Norwegian1.6K2%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Swedish | 38,336 | 40% |
| Finnish | 28,570 | 30% |
| English | 13,263 | 14% |
| Spanish | 1,650 | 2% |
| Norwegian | 1,632 | 2% |
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●
Jansson is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, a common surname originating as a patronymic
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Americanized spelling of Jansen.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 630 |
| 2019 | 626 |
| 2020 | 636 |
| 2021 | 639 |
| 2022 | 632 |
| 2023 | 637 |
| 2024 | 640 |
| 2025 | 651 |
NO SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) — 8 years between 2018–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Viktor Janssonb. 1886FIFinnish-Swedish sculptor (1886–1958)
- Tove Janssonb. 1914FIFinnish children's writer and illustrator (1914–2001)
- Per Olov Janssonb. 1920FIFinnish photographer and author (1920–2019)
- Gustaf Janssonb. 1922SESwedish marathon runner (1922–2012)
- Lars Janssonb. 1926FIauthor and cartoonist (1926-2000)
- Marie Forsåb. 1956SEnot in their usual nameSwedish actress
- Sophia Janssonb. 1962FIFinnish businessperson and artistic director of Moomin Characters Oy Ltd (born 1962)
- Dotterb. 1987SEnot in their usual nameSwedish singer and songwriter
- Oscar Janssonb. 1990SESwedish professional footballer
- Pontus Janssonb. 1991SESwedish association football player (born 1991)
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 33 sources across 17 countries.
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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 · 54 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Jansson?
- We estimate roughly 54 thousand people bear Jansson (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
- In which country does Jansson have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 42 thousand people bear Jansson in Sweden, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled jansson.
- Where is Jansson most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Jansson is densest in Åland Islands — about 1 in 43 people — even though Sweden holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Jansson compared with other names?
- In Sweden, Jansson is the 13th most common surname of 135,489 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Jansson mean?
- Recorded meaning: patronymic from the personal name Jan, a reduced form of Johannes (see John).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/janssonThe 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, “Jansson” — the 13th most common surname in Sweden. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.