Lene

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis)

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

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

Lene is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Denmark than in any other country, where it is the 38th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • DKDenmark1 in 200(measured from records)
  • NONorway1 in 563
  • SESweden1 in 18K

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.

Denmark (measured from records)

29,290 people

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
164 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 200 (inferred from the name graph)

Denmark

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

LeneLatin(measured from records)
ΛενεGreek(measured from records)

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

to lean

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 29 languages in the etymology graph.

How Lene is read(measured from records)

Lene is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.

  • Danish45%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Lene in Danish.

  • English20%

    The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).

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

  • Norwegian9.6%

    to lean

    as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Nynorskkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Portuguese8.5%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Lene in Portuguese.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Lene 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 Lene is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DK Denmark#3829,2901 in 20029KLene164
NO Norway#1129,7181 in 56333KLene113
BR Brazil—1,9921 in 106K2.2K——
PH Philippines—≈1,200 est.≈1 in 91K—Lene15
US United States—6371 in 522K573Lene112
SE Sweden#7175561 in 18K556Lene28
AL Albania—2501 in 12K250——
GL Greenland—≈4 est.≈1 in 13K29—5

29,290 people counted by Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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 PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts); Statistics Greenland — First names (NAXT5). 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)

Lene is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Portuguese given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Philippines, United States, Spain

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian

    Also written Lënë, Lène, Lené, Léné, Leñe

  • English given name35 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, Philippines, Norway

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Lene', Lené, Leneja, Lene’, Léne

  • French given name14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Norway, United States, Philippines

    Also written Lène, Léné, Léne, Lené, Lèné

  • a separate given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Norway, United States, Sweden, United Kingdom

    Also written Lène

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Léne, Lené, Léné, Lène

  • Albanian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Albania, United States

    Also written Lenë, Lenê

  • Turkish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Syria, Norway, Philippines

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written Lênê

52 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)

Lene is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Swedish, Lene är en dansk kortform av namn som Magdalene (→ Magdalena) eller Helene (→ Helena).

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • German and Danish: aphetic short form of both Helene (see HELEN ) and MAGDALENE . It is very frequently used as an independent given name, not directly connected with either of these full forms, and was the third commonest female name in use in Denmark in 1965.

    as a word

  • In Swedish, definite natural masculine singular of len

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

  • In Dutch, singular present subjunctive of lenen

    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)

1940196019802000Lene Køppen, b. 1953Lene Hau, b. 1959Lene Kaaberbøl, b. 1960Lene Børglum, b. 1961Lene Espersen, b. 1965Lene Moyell Johansen, b. 1968Lene Grawford Nystrøm, b. 1973Lene Marlin, b. 1980Lene Lai, b. 1989Lene Cecilia Sparrok, b. 1997

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)

InformalHej Lene,Hi Lene, (English)

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 66 sources across 34 countries.

Official registers attesting Lene
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—33K#120
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—29K#9
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20259.7K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—2.2K#5,670
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20222K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.9K#5,136
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020573#17,356
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—556#2,568
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2020411—
AL AlbaniaINSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts)—250#1,565
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—104#5,136
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202064#17,356

Reference works 5

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

How do you pronounce Lene?
A machine transcription gives /lənə/ (IPA) for Danish.
Where does the name Lene come from?
to lean Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Lene?
In the etymology graph, Elena, Helen and Elaine are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Helene.
What does the name Lene mean?
In English, The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).
Is Lene a male or female name?
Lene is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Lene have the most bearers?
In Denmark, the national register counted about 29 thousand people named Lene, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lene.
Where is Lene most common?
Lene is densest in Denmark, where the national register counts about 1 in 200 people carrying it.
How common is the name Lene?
In Denmark, the national register counted 29,290 people named Lene, about 1 in 200 residents.
How common is Lene compared with other names?
In Denmark, Lene is the 38th most common given name of 23,174 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Lene?

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

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, “Lene” — the 38th most common given name in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Lene parses inside a full name →