Names of Greenland GL

Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) records Petersen as the commonest surname in Greenland; the names that most distinguish Greenland from the rest of the world are Ane, Jensen and Berthelsen.

Written in kl, Danish.

Population
58K
Official registers
2
Name forms recorded
256
ABuilt from 2 official registers (2021), 256 name forms in our corpus, 18 cited works.

Official registers for given names and surnames, plus a written account of the naming system.

The account of the naming system rests on encyclopaedia and genealogy sources; it has not yet been checked against onomastic literature.

fewerlarger share
Where the names most characteristic of Greenland are borne outside it — the same spelling, counted in our record corpus. Shares are of all bearers of those names anywhere, Greenland included.

How names work in Greenland

3 naming traditions are in use in Greenland, listed in the order of the country's languages. They are separate systems, not variants of one, and each has its own page.

The most common names in Greenland

Counts everyone resident in the country · authority tier 1

This register publishes counts, not ranks; the numbering is the order of its own figures.

Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5), 2021 — 226 given names counted over residents, girls only, as the register publishes them.
#NameBearers recordedOur rank
1Ane5696
2Karen389—
3Marie380—
4Sofie278—
5Johanne271—
6Sara234—
7Dorthe22322
8Ikke-Navngivet208—
9Naja199—
10Paninnguaq193—
11Anna190—
12Else188—
13Margrethe186—
14Kristine185—
15Helene177—
16Louise17130
17Karoline15841
18Nivi158—
19Amalie15639
20Elisabeth153—

Where the two lists disagree

25 of Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5)'s top 25 given names sit five or more places away in our record corpus. Neither ranking is wrong; they count different people.

Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) 2021Across all recordsane: 1 → 6 · ranks lower across all records1. ane6karen: 2 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country2. karennot rankedmarie: 3 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country3. marienot rankedsofie: 4 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country4. sofienot rankedjohanne: 5 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country5. johannenot rankedsara: 6 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country6. saranot rankeddorthe: 7 → 22 · ranks lower across all records7. dorthe22ikke-navngivet: 8 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country8. ikke-navngivetnot rankednaja: 9 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country9. najanot rankedpaninnguaq: 10 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country10. paninnguaqnot rankedanna: 11 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country11. annanot rankedelse: 12 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country12. elsenot rankedmargrethe: 13 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country13. margrethenot rankedkristine: 14 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country14. kristinenot rankedhelene: 15 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country15. helenenot rankedlouise: 16 → 30 · ranks lower across all records16. louise30karoline: 17 → 41 · ranks lower across all records17. karoline41nivi: 18 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country18. nivinot rankedamalie: 19 → 39 · ranks lower across all records19. amalie39elisabeth: 20 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country20. elisabethnot rankedsusanne: 21 → 38 · ranks lower across all records21. susanne38pipaluk: 22 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country22. pipaluknot rankedkathrine: 23 → 47 · ranks lower across all records23. kathrine47ivalu: 24 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country24. ivalunot rankedbirthe: 25 → not ranked · not in our corpus’s top ranks for this country25. birthenot ranked
Hover a line for what is available to explain that row.
Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5), 2021 on the left; every record we hold for Greenland on the right. A dashed line means the name is not in our top ranks for this country at all.

The register counts one population in one year — everyone it enumerates, once. Our corpus counts records: historical registers going back decades, the diaspora, business and place records, and several generations of births. A name that was common two generations ago outranks a name common today; a name whose spelling scatters across sources (diacritics dropped, transliterated differently) loses ground, because only its dominant spelling is ranked.

Characteristic of Greenland

Not the most common names — the most distinctive ones. A name appears here when Greenland holds a larger share of its bearers than the world does, weighted by how much of the country's whole name distribution it accounts for.

AneJensLarsOleJørgenNielsKnudDortheSørenPoulJohanLouiseJonas
Sized by how much of the difference between Greenland's name distribution and the world's this name accounts for. Hover for its share here against its share worldwide.●

Over time

AneMarieKarenJohanneSofie20112021696
Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5), 2011–2021 (11 years). The line is that register's own figure for each year — not a total across registers, which would count the same people twice. The publisher labels this series “stock”.

Up to five names at a time.

Scripts & spelling

Petersensurname●
Olsensurname●
Jensensurname●
Nielsensurname●
Hansensurname●
The best-attested names in Greenland, in the spelling our records use there. Where a Latin spelling is also attested it is shown beneath — a spelling from the corpus, not a machine romanisation.

Countries whose names look alike

Measured as the overlap between each country's top 300 given-name forms, weighted by how common each is — the fuzzy-set approach of Lauc (2024), on a truncated inventory.

Registers & sources

Official registers

  • Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1)2021headline (surnames)

    Statistics Greenland (Grønlands Statistik). Counts: residents. surname. 281 forms. 2011–2021. Licence: open data (Statistics Greenland).

    What we know about this register

    PxWeb table NAXT1 "Surnames by surname, rank and time". Person counts (rank=0=Count) of residents as of 1 July, by surname x year 2011-2021. 297 distinct surnames, 3,004 rows. Top Petersen (2,137, 2014). No sex split. POST JSON query (surname=all, rank=item[0], time=all). Built by scripts/build_open_data_batch.py.

    Last verified 2026-06-04.

  • Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5)2021headline (given)

    Statistics Greenland (Grønlands Statistik). Counts: residents. given. 226 forms. 2011–2021. Licence: open data (Statistics Greenland).

    What we know about this register

    PxWeb table NAXT5 "First names by first name, unit, sex and time". Person counts (unit=0=Count) of residents of Greenland as of 1 July, by first name x sex (M/K=Men/Women) x year 2011-2021. 494 distinct first names, 4,832 rows. Top M Hans (990, 2011). POST JSON query (first name=all, sex=all, unit=item[0], time=all), response format json. Built by scripts/build_open_data_batch.py. CHECKED 2026-08-06: searched stat.gl (PxWeb NAXT tables, which are already the bulk equivalent ingested here) plus Greenland self-service portals (mit.gl, rigsombudsmanden.gl) for a live interactive single-name search UI/API distinct from the bulk cubes; none exists. No upgrade over the coverage already in this entry and gl-stat-surnames.

    Last verified 2026-06-04.

Cited works

Behind this page's own account — its one-line answer, its explanation of why the rankings differ, and the notes on its registers. Each naming tradition cites its own sources on its page. Not yet checked against onomastic literature.

About this data

Official figures are reproduced from the register named beside them, at the year named beside them, and are never combined across registers. The "across all records" ranking counts records in our own corpus — historical registers, the diaspora, business and place records — and is not a population count. Bearer estimates are omitted where a name accounts for more than a quarter of a country's records, because the estimate is not defensible there. Names listed by reference works and licensed name dictionaries are cited as attesting a name; their figures are not published.

Data snapshot: 2026-09-12.

Questions

What is the most common given name in Greenland?
Ane, according to Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) (2021), with 569 bearers recorded among girls.
What is the most common surname in Greenland?
Petersen, according to Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) (2021), with 2,087 bearers recorded.
Why do sources disagree about the commonest name in Greenland?
Because they count different people. Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5) (2021) counts one population once, and its commonest given name is Ane. Our corpus counts every record we hold — historical registers, the diaspora, decades of births — and its commonest is Jens. Both are on this page, each with its denominator.
Is there one naming system in Greenland?
No — 3 are described on this page (Greenlandic, Faroese, Scandinavian), and they are separate systems rather than variants of one.

Cite this page: Mondonomo, “Names of Greenland”, https://nelma.mondonomo.ai/names/GL (data snapshot 2026-09-12). Official figures from Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1); Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5).