Bendsøe

Bendsøe is a Danish surname and, less commonly, a toponym used in Danish geography. As a surname, it belongs to individuals of Danish origin and their descendants abroad, reflecting a traditional practice of deriving family names from places or landscape features. The exact etymology and earliest attestations of the name vary across sources, but its form is consistent with other Danish toponymic surnames.

A notable bearer of the name is Kjeld Bendsøe, a Danish engineer and early contributor to the field of topology optimization. His work helped advance computational methods for designing material layouts and structural components, and it is frequently referenced alongside the work of other pioneers in the field.

In Danish toponymy, Bendsøe also appears as a place-name element in historical and contemporary maps, illustrating the common overlap between surnames and local geography in Danish naming traditions. Variant spellings, such as Bendsoe, are encountered in contexts where Danish diacritics are not used.

See also Bendsoe (surname).