Knud
given name · Danish · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Knud is a given name, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country. In Greenland it is the 16th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Danish and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: From Old Norse Knútr. Borne by four kings of Denmark, two of them canonized. Cognate with English Canute. Doublet of knude (“knot”) (from the common noun knútr).
- DKDenmark1 in 573◐
- USUnited States1 in 2.9M
- GLGreenland1 in 172
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈11K ●
- Sources
- 120 ●
- 1 in 573 ◐
across 7 countries
4.4K records
Official registry-verified
Denmark
Meaning & origin●
- Old NorseKnútr●
- Proto-Germanic*knuttôcompare *knuttan-◐via Knútr
Steps marked ◐ come from the entry for the form named above them, not from this name's own sources.
From Old Norse Knútr. Borne by four kings of Denmark, two of them canonized. Cognate with English Canute. Doublet of knude (“knot”) (from the common noun knútr).
Sources 2
Attested across 7 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DK Denmark | #105 | 10,252△ | 2.4K rec. | 1 in 573 | 10K | Knud | 120 |
| NO Norway | — | 543 | 97 rec. | — | 384 | Knud | 26 |
| GL Greenland | #16 | 339 | 5 rec. | — | 240 | Knud | 14 |
| SE Sweden | — | 223△ | 41 rec. | 1 in 46K | 223 | Knud | 16 |
| US United States | — | 114 | 1.3K rec. | 1 in 2.9M | 114 | Knud | 103 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 104 | 66 rec. | — | — | Knud | 21 |
| AR Argentina | — | 99 | 94 rec. | — | — | Knud | 11 |
| BR Brazil | — | 74 | 34 rec. | — | — | Knud | 10 |
| CA Canada | — | 59 | 57 rec. | — | — | Knud | 20 |
| ES Spain | — | 37 | 15 rec. | — | — | Knud | 9 |
| CL Chile | — | 31 | 2 rec. | — | 1 | Knud | 11 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 27△ | 12 rec. | 1 in 640K | 27 | — | 9 |
Roughly 10K people in Denmark bear this name (about 1 in 573). 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●
- Danish59K90%
- German2.6K4%
- English1.8K3%
- Norwegian Bokmål3841%
- Spanish2731%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Danish | 59,097 | 90% |
| German | 2,561 | 4% |
| English | 1,752 | 3% |
| Norwegian Bokmål | 384 | 1% |
| Spanish | 273 | 1% |
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●
Knud is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In cel-bry-pro, crop, produce
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 316 |
| 2000 | 304 |
| 2001 | 298 |
| 2002 | 288 |
| 2003 | 280 |
| 2004 | 264 |
| 2005 | 255 |
| 2006 | 241 |
| 2007 | 236 |
| 2008 | 232 |
| 2009 | 226 |
| 2010 | 221 |
| 2011 | 215 |
| 2012 | 206 |
| 2013 | 199 |
| 2014 | 190 |
| 2015 | 182 |
| 2016 | 173 |
| 2017 | 164 |
| 2018 | 155 |
| 2019 | 148 |
| 2020 | 141 |
SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 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●
- Cnut the Greatb. 994DKnot in their usual name11th-century King of Denmark, Norway, and England
- Knud den Helligeb. 1043DKKing of Denmark from 1080 to 1086
- Canute V of Denmarkb. 1129DKnot in their usual nameKing of Denmark (1129-1157)
- Canute VI of Denmarkb. 1163DKnot in their usual nameKing of Denmark
- Knud Rasmussenb. 1879DKDanish explorer and anthropologist
- Knud Kristensenb. 1880DKDanish politician (1880–1962)
- Prince Knud of Denmarkb. 1900DKyounger son of Christian X of Denmark and Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
- Knud Enemark Jensenb. 1936DKDanish racing cyclist (1936-1960)
- Count Ingolf of Rosenborgb. 1940DKnot in their usual nameformer Danish prince (born 1940); elder son of Knud, Hereditary Prince of Denmark, and Princess Caroline-Mathilde of Denmark
- Knud Bartelsb. 1952DKDanish general
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 25 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 10K | #68 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 384 | #3,009 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 1999 | 316 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) | 2012 | 306 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) | 2011 | 306 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2000 | 304 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) | 2013 | 300 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2001 | 298 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) | 2014 | 291 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) | 2015 | 289 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2002 | 288 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) | 2016 | 280 | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 · 62 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Knud?
- We estimate roughly 11 thousand people bear Knud (counting its spellings and scripts) across 7 countries in our records.
- In which country does Knud have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 10 thousand people bear Knud in Denmark, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled knud.
- How common is Knud compared with other names?
- In Denmark, Knud is the 105th most common given name of 31,396 given names recorded there.
- Is Knud a male or female name?
- Knud is a male 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 Knud mean?
- Recorded meaning: From Old Norse Knútr. Borne by four kings of Denmark, two of them canonized. Cognate with English Canute. Doublet of knude (“knot”) (from the common noun knútr).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/knudThe 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, “Knud” — the 105th most common given name in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.