In relation to the surnames of Smith, Jones and Johnson in the U.S. or Schmidt in Germany, the name Heiden is pretty uncommon. Although the family of August and Rika (Knaack) Heiden has expanded greatly since their arrival in 1873, it is still rare to encounter someone named Heiden in the general public.

Somewhere over 20 years ago, I ran across a document called the U.S. Directory of Heidens. It contained two maps which give you an idea of the scarcity of Heiden households when compared to the total population of the U.S. According to this source, there were only about 1,300 Heiden households in 1997 in a U.S. population of over 270 million at that time.

Over the decades of doing this research, I have only come across a few Heidens who might be called "famous" in some way. As far as I know at this point, none of them are blood relatives of the Monroe County Heidens. 

Dr. Eric Heiden, who was born in Wisconsin in 1958, is probably the most widely known Heiden. He was the individual standout of the 1980 Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York. As a speed skater, he won an unprecedented five individual gold medals and set four Olympic records and one world record. He went on to become a medical doctor with his MD from Stanford University.

His sister, Elizabeth Lee "Beth" (Heiden) Reid who was born in 1959 was a bronze medalist at the same Olympics in speed skating. She was also known for cross-country skiing and bicycle racing.

"Konrad Heiden, the first of Hitler's biographers..." from "The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler" by Robert Payne

"...the anti-Nazi German biographer of Hitler, Konrad Heiden, who deplored the influence of his racial teachings..."  from page 105 of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer

Steven Allen Heiden was born September 21, 1976 in Rushford, Minnesota. He attended South Dakota State University and played professional football for the San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns. In 2023, he became the tight ends coach for the Detroit Lions.

Other than Konrad Heiden listed above, we have only found a few other Heidens from Germany who are not (as far as we know) related to the Monroe Heidens. These would include the following:

1. One Heiden was included on a World War I memorial in Gross Wokern, Germany.
   
   

2. Several soldiers named Heiden are buried in a German graveyard in Normandy, France.
   
   

3. On the extreme black sheep category would be a reference to: "At first, the S.S. was little more than a bodyguard for the Fuhrer. Its first leader was a newspaperman named Berchtold...he was replaced by one, Erhard Heiden, a former police stool pigeon of unsavory reputation. It was not until 1929 that Hitler found the ideal leader..." from page 121 of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer.
   
   

4. We don't know if this reference is of a real person or is fictional. "On his left was another former expert from Goebbels' staff, Ludwig Heiden, also working in the Orientation Ministry. He had in the meantime adopted the Moslem faith, made a trip to Mecca, and was called El Hadj. In deference to his new religion, he held a glass of orange juice. Both men were still fanatical Nazis."  from "The Odessa File", a novel by Frederick Forsyth.
   
   

5. Albrecht Heiden was a jeweler, gold and silver smith and proprietor of Theodor Heiden Holding in Munich. Somewhere I came across this obituary. Click Here to see a large version of it.

1. Heiden is a village in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland.
    
2. Heiden is a municipality in the district of Borken in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
    
3. Port Heiden (Alutiiq: Masrriq) is a city in Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city is 100.

Back in the stone age of computers (1995) I had access to two CD's that contained all the listed telephone numbers in the U.S. That was when the phones all had cords that attached to the wall which went to wires that were attached to posts along the street...can you imagine? Anyway, there were about 1,000 phones listed under the name Heiden and there were probably a few hundred who had unlisted numbers at the time.

Of the listed numbers, there were 39 different names which began with the word "Heiden" which are shown below.

1. Heidenan
2. Heidenberg
3. Heidenberger
4. Heidenblad
5. Heidenblut
6. Heidenhoffer
7. Heidenbrink
8. Heidenburg
9. Heidendahl
10. Heidenescher

11. Heidenfeld
12. Heidenfelder
13. Heidenfeldt
14. Heidenga
15. Heidenger
16. Heidengren
17. Heidenhain
18. Heidenhauer
19. Heidenheim
20. Heidenheimer

21. Heidenhofer
22. Heidenis
23. Heidenreich
24. Heidenreiter
25. Heidenrich
26. Heidenrider
27. Heidenriech
28. Heidenry
29. Heidenson
30. Heidenstrauch

31. Heidenstrom
32. Heidenstrome
33. Heidental
34. Heidenthal
35. Heidenwag
36. Heidenway
37. Heidenwirth
38. Heidenwith
39. Heidenwolf