Thorsten
Of Norse origin, meaning "Thor's stone" or "stone of the thunder god".
Name Census estimates that about 217 living Americans carry the first name Thorsten. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Thorsten today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Thorsten births was 2020 (18 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Thorsten. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Thorsten with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
217
~ 1 in 1,579,513 Americans
Peak year
2020
18 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#10,766
Tracked since 1969
Census
Thorsten in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 544 people with the first name Thorsten, which placed it at #19,436 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#19,436
National first-name rank
People counted
544
544 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
92.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Thorsten
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Thorsten is White at 92.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (3.3%) and Two or More Races (2.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Thorsten described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Thorsten at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White92.6% · 504
- Hispanic or Latino3.3% · 18
- Two or more races2.4% · 13
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.9% · 5
- Black or African American0.6% · 3
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 1
Popularity
Thorsten: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Thorsten from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 107 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Thorsten remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Thorsten by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Thorsten during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Thorstens live
Origin
Meaning and history of Thorsten
The given name Thorsten has its origins in the Old Norse language, which was spoken by the Germanic peoples of Scandinavia and parts of Northern Europe during the Viking Age (8th to 11th centuries). It is derived from the Old Norse words "þórr" meaning "thunder" and "steinn" meaning "stone" or "rock." The name can be interpreted as "Thor's stone" or "stone of Thor," referring to the powerful Norse god of thunder and lightning.
The earliest known mention of the name Thorsten can be traced back to the Icelandic Sagas, which are prose narratives written in Old Norse that recount the stories and traditions of the Norse people. One notable example is the Saga of the Greenlanders, written in the 13th century, which features a character named Thorstein Eiriksson, the son of Erik the Red, the Norse explorer who established the first European settlement in Greenland.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the name Thorsten was predominantly used in Scandinavia and the areas influenced by Norse culture, such as parts of Germany, the Netherlands, and the British Isles. During this period, several historical figures bore the name Thorsten, including Thorsten Thordsson (c. 1050-1115), a Norwegian chieftain and one of the first settlers of Iceland, and Thorsten Frille (c. 1200-1268), a Danish knight and military commander who played a significant role in the Baltic Crusades.
In the 16th century, the name Thorsten gained popularity in Germanic regions, particularly in Germany and the Low Countries. One notable bearer of the name during this time was Thorsten Vehlen (c. 1490-1539), a German Protestant reformer and one of the early leaders of the Reformation in Strasbourg.
In the 19th century, the name Thorsten gained more widespread use across Europe and beyond. Some notable individuals with this name include Thorsten Nordenfelt (1842-1920), a Swedish inventor and industrialist who developed the first fully automatic machine gun, and Thorsten Veblen (1857-1929), an American economist and sociologist best known for his theory of the leisure class.
Other historical figures with the given name Thorsten include Thorsten Palme (1936-1986), a Swedish politician and the father of Prime Minister Olof Palme, and Thorsten Heins (born 1957), a German business executive who served as the CEO of BlackBerry from 2012 to 2013.
People
Thorsten + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Thorsten as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Thorsten: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Thorsten?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 217 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Thorsten going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 1,579,513 US residents.
Is Thorsten a common name?
We classify Thorsten as "Very Rare". It ranks above 75.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 220 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Thorsten most popular?
The single biggest year for Thorsten was 2020, when 18 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Thorsten is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Thorsten in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 544 people with the name Thorsten, or 0.18 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #19,436 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Thorsten in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Thorsten?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Thorsten appears almost entirely male. Of the 540 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Thorsten?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Thorsten is White at 92.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (3.3%) and Two or More Races (2.4%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Thorsten most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Thorsten in the 2020 Census, accounting for 92.6% (504 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Thorsten in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Thorsten a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Thorsten in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Thorsten still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Thorsten in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Thorsten can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people have Thorsten as a first name?
For a quick modern take, check how many Americans are named Thorsten on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org.