Nielson
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nielson is a surname, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country, where it is the most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and , written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: ‘son of Neil’.
- DKDenmark1 in 26◐
- GLGreenland1 in 43
- NONorway1 in 58
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈513K ●
- #880 ●
- 4 ●
- Sources
- 374 ●
- 1 in 26 ◐
across 12 countries
of 21M surnames
recorded for this name
500K records
Official registry-verified
Denmark
Spellings & scripts●
3 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Nielsen in DK Denmark, CA Canada, TH Thailand and 7 more, Nilsson in SE Sweden, FI Finland, DE Germany and 3 more, Newson in GB United Kingdom, PL Poland, ZA South Africa and Nilsen in NO Norway.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
‘son of Neil’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DK Denmark | #1 | 222,355△ | 57K rec. | 1 in 26 | 222K | Nielsen | 260 |
| SE Sweden | #3 | 145,463 | 96K rec. | 1 in 70 | 145K | Nilsson | 191 |
| NO Norway | #4 | 94,971△ | 16K rec. | 1 in 58 | 95K | Nilsen | 123 |
| US United States | #844 | 42,773 | 276K rec. | 1 in 7.8K | 43K | Nielson | 374 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 16,511 | 12K rec. | — | listed | Newson | 127 |
| CA Canada | #767 | 8,466 | 7.8K rec. | — | — | Nielsen | 131 |
| AU Australia | — | 8,016 | 7.4K rec. | — | 1 | Nielson | 100 |
| FI Finland | #504 | 2,998△ | 323 rec. | 1 in 1.9K | 3K | Nilsson | 26 |
| DE Germany | — | 2,533 | 2.3K rec. | — | listed | Nilsson | 84 |
| TH Thailand | — | 2,016 | 1.3K rec. | — | #304,925 | Nielsen | 74 |
| AR Argentina | — | 1,397 | 0 rec. | 1 in 33K | 1.4K | — | 1 |
| GL Greenland | #4 | 1,346△ | 35 rec. | 1 in 43 | 1.3K | Nielsen | 28 |
Roughly 222K people in Denmark bear this name (about 1 in 26). 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●
- English116K83%
- 7.1K5%
- Spanish4.6K3%
- Portuguese1.1K1%
- German1.1K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 116,161 | 83% |
| 7,123 | 5% | |
| Spanish | 4,567 | 3% |
| Portuguese | 1,104 | 1% |
| German | 1,050 | 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 |
|---|---|
| 1950 | 22 |
| 1960 | 90 |
| 1970 | 238 |
| 1980 | 673 |
| 1990 | 1,637 |
| 2000 | 2,522 |
| 2010 | 2,915 |
| 2020 | 3,073 |
| 2022 | 3,100 |
BR IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) — 9 years between 1950–2022. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Francis Neilsonb. 1867GBnot in their usual nameBritish politician
- Hugh Neilsonb. 1904not in their usual nameScottish male curler
- Howard C. Nielsonb. 1924USUnited States Congressman from Utah (1924-2020)
- Claire Nielsonb. 1937GBBritish actress
- Lewis Nielsonb. 1950USAmerican composer
- Steven Nielsonb. 1979USAmerican politician
- Stephanie Nielsonb. 1981USAmerican blogger
- Alex Mecumb. 1987USnot in their usual nameAmerican pornographic actor
- Shi Ne Nielsonactress
- Jim NielsonUSAmerican politician
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 29 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 12K | #3,026 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 12K | #3,137 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 10K | #3,164 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 3.3K | #4,386 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 3.2K | #1,663 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 3.1K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 3.1K | #3,803 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2020 | 3.1K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2010 | 2.9K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2000 | 2.5K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1990 | 1.6K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 1980 | 964 | — |
Reference works 4
- 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 · 49 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Nielson?
- We estimate roughly 513 thousand people bear Nielson (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
- In which country does Nielson have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 222 thousand people bear Nielson in Denmark, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled nielsen.
- Where is Nielson most common?
- Nielson is densest in Denmark, where the national register counts about 1 in 26 people carrying it.
- How common is Nielson compared with other names?
- In Denmark, Nielson is the most common surname of 100,227 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Nielson mean?
- Recorded meaning: ‘son of Neil’.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/nielsonThe 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, “Nielson” — the most common surname in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.