Kể

surname · Latin script

Meaning: to tell

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Kể is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Vietnam than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • VNVietnam≈1 in 34K(inferred from the name graph)
  • SESweden1 in 104K
  • USUnited States1 in 121K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Vietnam (inferred from the name graph)

≈2,900 people, est.

Sources
77 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 34K (inferred from the name graph)

Vietnam, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Kế in VN Vietnam.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

to tell

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kể counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Kể is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
VN Vietnam#790≈2,900 est.≈1 in 34KlistedKế77
US United States—2,7471 in 121K2.8K—45
ES Spain—1211 in 413K290—2
SE Sweden—981 in 104K98—1
PL Poland—421 in 911K26——
DK Denmark—311 in 189K16——
GY Guyana—21 in 375K2——

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kể is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name24 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Netherlands, Ireland, United States

    Also written Ke, Kē, Kë, Kê, Kẻ

  • English given name50 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Brazil

    Languages: English, Dutch, German

    Also written Ke, Ke', Kë, Ké, Kê

1 further group record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Kể under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Kể mean, and where does it come from?
to tell Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Kể have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 2.9 thousand people named Kể in Vietnam, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kế.
How common is the name Kể?
In the United States, the national register counted 2,747 people named Kể in 2020, about 1 in 121 thousand residents.
How common is Kể compared with other names?
In Vietnam, Kể is the 790th most common given name of 73,918 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kể?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/k%E1%BB%83

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Kể” — the 790th most common given name in Vietnam. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kể parses inside a full name →