Karhunen is a Finnish surname of Virtanen type derived from the word karhu, "bear". In the past, the surname had a feminine form, Karhutar < Karhunen tytär ("Kahunen's daughter")., Se tavallinen Virtanen. Suomalaisen sukunimikäytännön modernisoituminen 1850-luvulta vuoteen 1921 ([The Usual Virtanen. The Modernization of the Finnish Surname Practice From the 1850s to 1921]), pp. 212, 213

Notable people with the surname include:

Jorma Karhunen (1913–2002), Finnish WW II fighter ace Kari Karhunen (1915–1992), Finnish probabilist and mathematical statistician Esko Karhunen (1928–2016), Finnish basketball player Tomi Karhunen (born 1989), Finnish ice hockey goaltender

Fictional characters Kaisa Karhutar, from the 1980 Soviet-Finnish film Borrowing Matchsticks

See also

Karhu, Laine type counterpart

References