Ask
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: v., moli, htiveli; ask with a present, as for a wife, mboya feli
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/æsk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ask is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Norway than in any other country.
- SESweden1 in 5.2K(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 2K
- ISIceland≈1 in 60K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Norway (measured from records)
- Sources
- 76 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.0K (inferred from the name graph)
2,680 people
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
European ash (ash tree) Fraxinus excelsior
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Ask is read(measured from records)
Ask is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English42%
v., moli, htiveli; ask with a present, as for a wife, mboya feli
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
- Norwegian17%
European ash (ash tree) Fraxinus excelsior
as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Nynorskkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Arabic5.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Ask in Arabic.
- Swedish5.2%
European ash (tree) Fraxinus excelsior
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Ask, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ask counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | #404 | 2,680 | 1 in 2K | 6.3K | Ask | 68 |
| SE Sweden | #767 | 1,947 | 1 in 5.2K | 1.9K | Ask | 48 |
| DZ Algeria | — | ≈610 est. | ≈1 in 71K | — | Ask | 2 |
| US United States | — | 585 | 1 in 569K | 604 | Ask | 76 |
| MA Morocco | — | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 120K | — | Ask | 5 |
| FI Finland | — | 90 | 1 in 62K | 90 | — | 5 |
| IS Iceland | — | ≈6 est. | ≈1 in 60K | 1 | Ask | 4 |
2,680 people counted by SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Ask is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Kurdish, Gazelle, deer
as a wordkurdi.sh Kurdish personal names dictionary
In Danish, ash tree (Fraxinus spp.), especially, common ash (tree, Fraxinus excelsior)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Icelandic, indefinite accusative singular of askur
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Fritz Askb. 1876SESwedish ophthalmologist (1876–1934)
- Sam Askb. 1878SESwedish screenwriter and actor (1878-1937)
- Sten Askb. 1943SESwedish diplomat (born 1943)
- Kari Kolbræk Askb. 1949NONorwegian politician
- Beatrice Askb. 1956SESwedish politician, cabinet minister and county governor
- Ole Askb. 1964NONorwegian singer-songwriter
- Lene Askb. 1974NONorwegian illustrator and cartoonist
- Morten Askb. 1980NONorwegian ice hockey player
- Magnus Ask Mikkelsenb. 1987NONorwegian association football player
- Fredrik Askb. 1990NONorwegian tennis and padel 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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 30 sources across 12 countries.
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What are other forms of the name Ask?
- In the etymology graph, Aske is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Ask?
- A machine transcription gives /æsk/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Ask mean?
- In English, v., moli, htiveli; ask with a present, as for a wife, mboya feli
- Where does the name Ask come from?
- European ash (ash tree) Fraxinus excelsior Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Ask have the most bearers?
- In Norway, the national register counted about 2.7 thousand people named Ask, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ask.
- Where is Ask most common?
- Ask is densest in Norway, where the national register counts about 1 in 2.0 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Ask?
- In Norway, the national register counted 2,680 people named Ask, about 1 in 2.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Ask compared with other names?
- In Norway, Ask is the 404th most common surname of 90,139 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ask?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/askThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
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, “Ask” — the 404th most common surname in Norway. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.