More women than men change their surnames

More women than men change their surnames

New figures from Statistics Denmark show that women change their surnames more often than men.

The number of surname changes has remained stable over the past ten years. (Photo: © Signe Goldmann, Ritzau Scanpix) 31 minutes ago

In traditional terms, a woman changes her surname to her husband's at marriage.

It appears that the old tradition still holds sway over parts of the Danish population.

Last year, 33,268 people changed their surnames, and 70% of these people were women.

This shows new figures from Statistics Denmark, which has counted the entire population's names on January 1, 2025.

The people who changed their surnames were typically, according to the figures, between the start of the 20s and the start of the 40s, which is the same age range in which people typically get married.

Whether the change of surname is directly related to marriages has not been investigated in Statistics Denmark's survey. Two out of three people aged between 24 and 37 who changed their surname in 2024 also got married in 2024.

The number of surname changes has remained stable over the past ten years.

Last year, 33,268 people changed their surnames, and 70% of these people were women. (Photo: © Ida Marie Odgaard, Ritzau Scanpix)

---------------------

Most popular names

---------------------

It's not just surnames that have been changed last year. 5,147 people changed their first names.

Once again, it was primarily women who were responsible for the changes. Two out of three people who changed their first name were women.

Some types of changes in first names were a change in spelling. Other changes involved the removal of one or more syllables, while others took entirely new first names.

For women, the most common change was from the name Susanne to Sanne. This affected 18 women. For men, the most common change was from Rene to René. This affected 29 men.

The most common names in the Danish population last year were Peter and Anne.

If the population is divided into age groups, there are differences in the top scorers.

The name William is at the top for age groups 1-9 years and 10-19 years. For girls, the names Alma and Emma are at the top in the two age groups.

Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.