Nielsen

Nielsen is the 796th most common surname in the United States, shared by 42,520 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 7,030.

By the numbers

People: 42,520
Rank: 796th
How common: 1 in 7,030
Per 100,000: 14.2

Where the name comes from

Origin Danish, Norwegian, from a patronymic

and Norwegian Nielsen.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Nielsen described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 91.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.0%
Black, not Hispanic 0.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.4%

Notable people called Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen (1926–2010)Canadian-American actor and comedian
Asta Nielsen (1881–1972)Danish actress
Sanna Nielsen (born 1984)Swedish singer and television presenter
Carl Nielsen (1865–1931)Danish composer
Brigitte Nielsen (born 1963)Danish actress, model and singer
Connie Nielsen (born 1965)Danish actress
Brian Steen Nielsen (born 1968)Danish association football player
Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen (born 1983)Lithuanian chess player and politician

People named Nielsen with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Nielsen

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.