Sven

given name · German · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Sven is a given name, most frequently recorded in Germany. It appears chiefly in German and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany1 in 361◐
  • ATAustria1 in 3.6K
  • SESweden1 in 13K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈28K ●

across 13 countries

8 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
287 ●

902K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 13K ◐

Sweden

Spellings & scripts●

SwainLatin · Hindi●433K records
สเวนThai · Thai●152 records
סווןHebrew · Hebrew●128 records
সোয়াইনBengali · Bangla●19 records
ସୁବାଇOdia · Odia●2 records
스웨인Hangul · Korean●1 records
СуейнCyrillic · Bulgarian●0 records
ΣβενGreek · Greek●0 records

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Swain in IN India, MX Mexico, CO Colombia and 1 more.

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●

recorded in German

im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl. Vom. nordischer Herkunft (altnord, sveinn »junger

Sources 1

  • DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Sven is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany—335,937294K rec.—listedSven287
US United States—25,15740K rec.1 in 13K25KSven246
GB United Kingdom—5,3473.8K rec.—listedSven89
AT Austria—4,5471.2K rec.—830Sven99
AU Australia—3,3162.9K rec.—3Sven118
CA Canada—1,0891.3K rec.—1Sven71
IN India#3631,044499K rec.1 in 1.3M1KSwain161
NZ New Zealand—9791.1K rec.——Sven26
AR Argentina—954812 rec.—2Sven29
MX Mexico—851720 rec.——Swain43
SE Sweden—7878.8K rec.1 in 13K95KSven118
CO Colombia—766586 rec.——Swain40

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • German365K60%
  • English44K7%
  • Western Frisian33K5%
  • Finnish27K4%
  • Dutch26K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
German364,92060%
English44,3087%
Western Frisian33,4085%
Finnish27,3754%
Dutch26,1604%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Sven is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Finnish given name33K records spelled Sven3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Netherlands

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Švêñ

  • Norwegian Bokmål given name16K records spelled Sven54 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Norway, Croatia, United States, Spain

    Languages: Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian, Croatian

    Also written Svein, Свен, Свэн, Svend, Swen

  • Czech given name1.5K records spelled Sven4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, Slovakia, Netherlands, Switzerland

    Languages: Czech, Slovak

    Also written Šveň, Šven

52 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Sven is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In French, Origine scandinave, signifie « jeune homme ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In French, Old Norse name, 'young man, youth'

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, Norse; youthful

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • Ragazzo

    as a nameIl grande libro dei nomi per bebè. Significato, origini, curiosità. Oltre 7000 nomi per bambine e bambini Significato,…

  • Swedish: from the Old Norse byname Sveinn ‘boy, lad’. It is now also used in the German-speaking world and to some extent in the United States. Cognates: Danish: Svend. Norwegian: Svein .

    as a word

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●

020406019201940196019802000202058 · 2015

Show as table
Sven in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1911–2025
Yearrecords
19116
191413
191511
191615
191713
19189
19217
19228
19237
192410
19255
19268
19278
192815
192913
193015
19315
19326
193312
193412
193510
19367
193710
19398
19405
19415
19425
194311
19446
19457
19465
19477
19485
19497
195010
19518
195210
195314
195417
195514
19569
195721
195817
195923
196028
196119
196231
196323
196427
196532
196623
196745
196830
196939
197043
197139
197225
197326
197426
197524
197621
197735
197823
197931
198025
198121
198232
198324
198420
198518
198631
198725
198829
198929
199022
199123
199225
199326
199427
199522
199618
199731
199836
199931
200029
200126
200227
200320
200435
200518
200631
200725
200833
200928
201035
201124
201234
201333
201456
201558
201636
201737
201852
201953
202053
202144
202251
202353
202451
202531

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 110 years between 1911–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

100012001400160018002000Blot-Sweyn, b. 1001Sweyn III of Denmark, b. 1125Sven Hedin, b. 1865Sven Nykvist, b. 1922Olof Palme, b. 1927Sven Davidson, b. 1928Lasse Hallström, b. 1946Sven Hannawald, b. 1974Sven Bender, b. 1989Loris Karius, b. 1993
  • Blot-Sweynb. 1001not in their usual namepolitician
  • Sweyn III of Denmarkb. 1125DKnot in their usual nameKing of Denmark
  • Sven Hedinb. 1865SESwedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, travel writer and illustrator (1865-1952)
  • Sven Nykvistb. 1922SESwedish cinematographer and film director (1922-2006)
  • Olof Palmeb. 1927SEnot in their usual nameSwedish Prime Minister (1969–76, 1982–86)
  • Sven Davidsonb. 1928SESwedish tennis player (1928–2008)
  • Lasse Hallströmb. 1946SEnot in their usual nameSwedish director and screenwriter
  • Sven Hannawaldb. 1974DEGerman former ski jumper and footballer
  • Sven Benderb. 1989DEGerman footballer
  • Loris Kariusb. 1993DEnot in their usual nameGerman association football player

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 85 sources across 40 countries.

Official registers attesting Sven
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—95K#29
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)202031K—
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—16K#241
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—9.1K#436
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—7.8K#467
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20253.7K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20203K#5,687
HR CroatiaDZS — Učestalost osobnih imena (Popis 2021)20212.5K—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—2.3K#211
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—2.2K—
HR CroatiaDZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form)20212K#363
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—1.5K#110

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • 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 · 667 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Sven?
We estimate roughly 28 thousand people bear Sven (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
In which country does Sven have the most bearers?
Sven is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled sven.
How common is Sven compared with other names?
In India, Sven is the 363rd most common surname of 2,352,292 surnames recorded there.
Is Sven a male or female name?
Sven 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 Sven mean?
Recorded meaning: im 20. Jh. entlehnter männl.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sven

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Sven” — the 363rd most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Sven parses inside a full name →