Backman

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Old English (ge)bæc ‘bakemeats’ + mann, ‘maker or seller of pastries, pies, etc.’; first attested Walter Bakman 1279

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈbækmən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Backman is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • SESweden1 in 2.5K(measured from records)
  • CACanada≈1 in 68K
  • USUnited States1 in 104K

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.

Finland (measured from records)

6,455 people

Sources
282 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 863 (inferred from the name graph)

Finland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from Old English (ge)bæc ‘bakemeats’ + mann, ‘maker or seller of pastries, pies, etc.’; first attested Walter Bakman 1279

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Where in the world(measured from records)

Backman 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.

Where Backman is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FI Finland#7086,4551 in 8636.5KBackman42
SE Sweden#2864,1001 in 2.5K4.1KBackman95
US United States—3,2101 in 104K3.2KBackman282
BJ Benin#773≈1,700 est.≈1 in 7.6K—Backman3
CA Canada—≈560 est.≈1 in 68K—Backman87
NO Norway—1101 in 50K110Backman15
LY Libya—≈110 est.≈1 in 66K—Backman2

6,455 people counted by DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Backman is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Finnish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Finland, United States, Norway

    Languages: Finnish, Swedish, Estonian

    Also written Bäckman, Bãckman

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Bäckman

  • Swahili surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Sweden, Finland

    Also written Bäckman

  • English surname20 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Russia, Ukraine, Finland

    Languages: English, Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Bakman, Бакман, Bäkman, Bäckman, Baekman

41 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Backman 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 English, A defender in Australian rules football.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, Different form of Back (i–ii).

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • In English, Walter Bakman 1279 RH (C); John Bakeman 1327 SR (Ess). OE (ge)bæc ‘bakemeats’, and mann, a maker or seller of pastries, pies, etc. cf. Walter le Bakmonger 1314 MEOT (Herts).

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

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)

1850190019502000Kaarlo Kivekäs, b. 1866Eric Backman, b. 1896Lennart Backman, b. 1934Edda Heiðrún Backman, b. 1957Wally Backman, b. 1959Ingemar Backman, b. 1976Fredrik Backman, b. 1981Niklas Backman, b. 1988Kennard Backman, b. 1993

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)

FormalDear Backman,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 27 sources across 16 countries.

Official registers attesting Backman
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—6.5K#280
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—4.1K#231
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.2K#10,034
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020203K#10,086
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020003K#9,978
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—2.6K—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—110#13,966
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

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 does the name Backman mean, and where does it come from?
from Old English (ge)bæc ‘bakemeats’ + mann, ‘maker or seller of pastries, pies, etc.’; first attested Walter Bakman 1279 Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
How do you pronounce Backman?
A machine transcription gives /ˈbækmən/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Backman have the most bearers?
In Finland, the national register counted about 6.5 thousand people named Backman, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled backman.
Where is Backman most common?
Backman is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 863 people carrying it.
How common is the name Backman?
In Finland, the national register counted 6,455 people named Backman, about 1 in 863 residents.
How common is Backman compared with other names?
In Finland, Backman is the 708th most common surname of 94,499 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Backman?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/backman

The 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, “Backman” — the 708th most common surname in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Backman parses inside a full name →