Torsten
A masculine Scandinavian name derived from the Old Norse words "Thor" and "sten" meaning "Thor's stone".
Name Census estimates that about 678 living Americans carry the first name Torsten. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Torsten today is around 19 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Torsten births was 2009 (33 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Torsten. 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 Torsten with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
678
~ 1 in 505,537 Americans
Peak year
2009
33 babies that year
Average age
19
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,408
Tracked since 1962
Census
Torsten in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 952 people with the first name Torsten, which placed it at #12,871 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
#12,871
National first-name rank
People counted
952
952 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
91.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Torsten
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Torsten is White at 91.9%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.9%) and Hispanic (2.0%). 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 Torsten 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 Torsten at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White91.9% · 875
- Two or more races4.9% · 47
- Hispanic or Latino2.0% · 19
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.7% · 7
- Black or African American0.2% · 2
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.2% · 2
Popularity
Torsten: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Torsten from the 1960s through to the 2020s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 255 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Torsten remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Torsten 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 Torsten during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Torstens live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. California, Washington, Minnesota recorded the most babies named Torsten, while Minnesota, Washington, California recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 12 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Torsten
The name Torsten is a Scandinavian name of Old Norse origin. It is derived from the Old Norse elements "þorr" meaning "thunder" and "steinn" meaning "stone". The name can be roughly translated to mean "Thor's stone" or "stone of thunder".
The name is closely tied to the ancient Norse mythology and the god Thor, who was associated with thunder, lightning, storms, and strength. The inclusion of "steinn" in the name suggests a connection to the solid and enduring nature of stone or rock.
The earliest recorded use of the name Torsten can be traced back to the Viking Age, around the 8th to 11th centuries. During this period, the Norse people were active in Scandinavia, parts of Europe, and even parts of North America.
One of the earliest notable figures with the name Torsten was Torsten Galen, a Swedish military officer who served as a colonel in the Swedish army during the 17th century. He was born in 1628 and played a significant role in several military campaigns during the later stages of the Thirty Years' War.
Another prominent individual with the name Torsten was Torsten Kåre Nilsson, a Swedish writer and poet born in 1898. He was known for his poetry collections and novels, which often explored themes of nature, love, and the human condition. Nilsson was awarded the prestigious Bellman Prize in 1934 for his literary contributions.
In the field of science, Torsten Wiesel, a Swedish neurophysiologist, made significant contributions to the understanding of the visual system. He was born in 1924 and shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with David Hubel for their groundbreaking research on information processing in the visual cortex.
Torsten Lindberg, born in 1917, was a Swedish athlete who excelled in the sport of wrestling. He competed in the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics, winning a silver medal in the featherweight category in 1952.
Torsten Viljor, a Norwegian-American actor and director, was born in 1912. He had a successful career in Hollywood, appearing in numerous films and television shows throughout the mid-20th century. Some of his notable roles were in the films "Quo Vadis" (1951) and "The Ten Commandments" (1956).
People
Torsten + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Torsten 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
Torsten: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Torsten?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 678 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Torsten 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 505,537 US residents.
Is Torsten a common name?
We classify Torsten as "Very Rare". It ranks above 87.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 691 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Torsten most popular?
The single biggest year for Torsten was 2009, when 33 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Torsten is about 19 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Torsten in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 952 people with the name Torsten, or 0.32 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,871 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 Torsten 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 Torsten?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Torsten appears almost entirely male. Of the 953 people counted with this name, 99.7% 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 Torsten?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Torsten is White at 91.9%. The next largest groups are Two or More Races (4.9%) and Hispanic (2.0%). 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 Torsten most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Torsten in the 2020 Census, accounting for 91.9% (875 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 Torsten in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Torsten a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Torsten 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 Torsten still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Torsten 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 Torsten 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 Torsten as a first name?
If you just want to know how many people share the name Torsten, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.