Hansen Last Name Popularity, Meaning And Origin - Name Census

Find out how popular the last name Hansen is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Hansen.

Meaning of Hansen

A patronymic surname of Scandinavian origin meaning "son of Hans," derived from the personal name Hans or Johannes.

Hansen, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Hansen surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Hansen in America

Hansen is the 204th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Hansen surname appeared 137,977 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 47 people would have the surname Hansen.

We can also compare 2010 data for Hansen to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

2010	2000	Change (%)
Rank	204	193	5.54%
Count	137,977	133,474	3.32%
Proportion per 100k	46.78	49.48	-5.61%

The history of the last name Hansen

The surname Hansen is of Scandinavian origin, specifically from Denmark and Norway. It is a patronymic surname, meaning it originated from the name of the father or an ancestor. The name is derived from the old Norse personal name Hans, a shortened form of Johannes, which was the Scandinavian version of the name John.

In the Middle Ages, the use of surnames was not widespread, and people were often identified by their given name followed by their father's name with the suffix "-son" added. Hansen, meaning "son of Hans," was one such surname that emerged during this time.

The earliest recorded instances of the surname Hansen can be traced back to the 13th and 14th centuries in Danish and Norwegian records. One of the earliest known bearers of the name was Niels Hansen, a Danish nobleman who lived in the late 13th century.

As the use of surnames became more common, the name Hansen spread across Scandinavia and eventually to other parts of Europe and the Americas as people migrated. In some cases, the spelling of the name may have been modified slightly, such as Hanson or Hannsen, but the root remained the same.

Notable individuals with the surname Hansen throughout history include:

1. Peter Andreas Hansen (1795-1874), a Danish astronomer and mathematician known for his work on the orbit of the Moon and the theory of comets.

2. Gerhard Armauer Hansen (1841-1912), a Norwegian physician who discovered the bacterium responsible for leprosy, now known as Mycobacterium leprae.

3. Alvin Hansen (1887-1975), an American economist and professor at Harvard University, known for his contributions to the theory of the business cycle and Keynesian economics.

4. Lars Hansen (born 1952), an American economist and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2013 for his work on asset pricing and time series analysis.

5. Edvard Hansen (1888-1957), a Norwegian painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and depictions of rural life in Norway.

The surname Hansen has a rich history and has been carried by individuals from various walks of life, including scientists, artists, and scholars, throughout the centuries.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Hansen

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Hansen.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Hansen was:

Race/Ethnicity	Percentage	Total Occurrences
Non-Hispanic White Only	94.22%	130,002
Non-Hispanic Black Only	0.53%	731
Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only	0.74%	1,021
Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native	0.49%	676
Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races	1.47%	2,028
Hispanic Origin	2.54%	3,505

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Hansen has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

2010	2000	Change (%)
White	94.22%	95.64%	-1.50%
Black	0.53%	0.40%	27.96%
Asian and Pacific Islander	0.74%	0.60%	20.90%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0.49%	0.49%	0.00%
Two or More Races	1.47%	1.24%	16.97%
Hispanic	2.54%	1.62%	44.23%

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Hansen was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Hansen, please contact us.

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"Hansen last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com. Accessed on December 10, 2025. http://namecensus.com/last-names/hansen-surname-popularity/.

"Hansen last name popularity, history, and meaning". NameCensus.com, http://namecensus.com/last-names/hansen-surname-popularity/. Accessed 10 December, 2025

Hansen last name popularity, history, and meaning. NameCensus.com. Retrieved from http://namecensus.com/last-names/hansen-surname-popularity/.