Karlsson
surname · Swedish · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Karlsson is a surname, with more bearers in Sweden than in any other country, where it is the 4th most common surname. It appears chiefly in Swedish and Finnish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Swedish; patronymic from the personal name Karl (see Charles).
- AXÅland Islands1 in 24◐
- SESweden1 in 66
- FIFinland1 in 344
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈178K ●
- Sources
- 191 ●
- 1 in 24 ◐
across 14 countries
91K records
Official registry-verified
Åland Islands
Meaning & origin●
Swedish; patronymic from the personal name Karl (see Charles).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages 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 | #4 | 155,258 | 82K rec. | 1 in 66 | 155K | Karlsson | 185 |
| FI Finland | #82 | 16,204△ | 916 rec. | 1 in 344 | 16K | Karlsson | 57 |
| NO Norway | #254 | 2,802△ | 932 rec. | 1 in 2K | 2.8K | Karlsson | 57 |
| DK Denmark | #345 | 1,313△ | 387 rec. | 1 in 4.5K | 1.3K | Karlsson | 92 |
| AX Åland Islands | #1 | 1,080△ | 3 rec. | 1 in 24 | 1.1K | Karlsson | 9 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1,014 | 438 rec. | — | — | Karlsson | 62 |
| US United States | — | 893 | 4.7K rec. | 1 in 372K | 995 | Karlsson | 191 |
| IS Iceland | #44 | 540 | 150 rec. | — | 2 | Karlsson | 61 |
| BJ Benin | #13 | 455 | 454 rec. | — | — | Karlsson | 9 |
| ES Spain | — | 313 | 288 rec. | 1 in 160K | 313 | Karlsson | 37 |
| PL Poland | — | 199 | — | 1 in 192K | 199 | — | — |
| CA Canada | — | 190 | 177 rec. | — | — | Karlsson | 26 |
Roughly 155K people in Sweden bear this name (about 1 in 66). 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●
- Swedish106K47%
- Finnish66K29%
- English15K7%
- Danish5K2%
- Norwegian5K2%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Swedish | 106,424 | 47% |
| Finnish | 65,903 | 29% |
| English | 15,006 | 7% |
| Danish | 5,036 | 2% |
| Norwegian | 4,966 | 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●
Karlsson 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 German, Patronymischer Familienname zu Rufname Karl mit -sson; auch skandinavisch möglich, Bearer count: 92.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
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 | 1,355 |
| 2019 | 1,367 |
| 2020 | 1,365 |
| 2021 | 1,372 |
| 2022 | 1,393 |
| 2023 | 1,386 |
| 2024 | 1,391 |
| 2025 | 1,401 |
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●
- Neneh Cherryb. 1964SEnot in their usual nameSwedish singer
- Peter Karlssonb. 1966SEice hockey player
- Peter Karlssonb. 1969SESwedish table tennis player
- Miss Lib. 1982SEnot in their usual nameSwedish singer and songwriter
- Per Karlssonb. 1986SESwedish footballer
- Pernilla Karlssonb. 1990FIFinnish singer and handball player
- Kristian Karlssonb. 1991SESwedish table tennis player
- Mattias Karlssonb. 1991SESwedish table tennis player
- David Moberg Karlssonb. 1994SESwedish association football player
- Jesper Karlssonb. 1998SESwedish association football player (born 1998)
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 34 sources across 19 countries.
Reference works 5
- 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 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 · 56 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Karlsson?
- We estimate roughly 178 thousand people bear Karlsson (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
- In which country does Karlsson have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 155 thousand people bear Karlsson in Sweden, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled karlsson.
- Where is Karlsson most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Karlsson is densest in Åland Islands — about 1 in 24 people — even though Sweden holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Karlsson compared with other names?
- In Sweden, Karlsson is the 4th most common surname of 135,489 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Karlsson mean?
- Recorded meaning: Swedish; patronymic from the personal name Karl (see Charles).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/karlssonThe 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, “Karlsson” — the 4th most common surname in Sweden. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.