Jensen (surname)

Jensen
Origin
Region of origin	Denmark, Norway
Other names
Variant form(s)	Jenson

Jensen is a Danish and Norwegian patronymic surname derived from the given name Jens (given name)

There was no "Jensen family", merely a system of patronymics that was finally fixed in the 19th century at an arbitrary time, when the state bureaucracy required family names; before that people took their name from their father's first name.^[1]

^ Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, A Dictionary of Surnames (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. xxxv & 282-83.

[1] Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, A Dictionary of Surnames (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. xxxv & 282-83.

[1]