Kanas

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Kanas is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Poland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Dažnai gali būti pravardinė, sietina su liet.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 1.1M(measured from records)
  • VUVanuatu≈1 in 3.6K
  • PLPoland1 in 113K

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.

Poland (measured from records)

339 people, 2026

Sources
158 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 3.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Vanuatu, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

recorded in Lithuanian

Dažnai gali būti pravardinė, sietina su liet. kanas „kas kani, šykštus, gobšus žmogus“ (LKŽ V 198). Bet neretai gali būti ir skolinta pvd., plg. lat. Kans (LAG 197, 321, 356 ir kt.): vok. (iš hebr.) Kohn, Konn, Kaan, Kahn (M. Gottschald, 1954, p. 221)

Sources 1

  • Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kanas 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 Kanas is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PL Poland3391 in 113K176——
US United States3021 in 1.1M309Kanas158
GH Ghana≈88 est.≈1 in 332K—Kanas3
VU Vanuatu≈82 est.≈1 in 3.6K1—2
TN Tunisia≈66 est.≈1 in 176K—Kanas1
CH Switzerland221 in 382K22Kanas8

339 people counted by dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames), 2026. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Vanuatu Electoral Office — 2022 Snap Election consolidated candidate list. 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)

Kanas is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Polish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States

    Also written Kanaś, Ķàñàs

  • Spanish surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Argentina, United States, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kañas, Kàñàs, Kāñās, Kâñâs, Kanaş

  • French surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States

    Also written Kanaş

  • Malay surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Kañas

34 further groups 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Kanas is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • nickname for a miser, Lithuanian kanas.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • unexplained.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In Swedish, indefinite genitive singular of kana

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Estonian, inessive singular of kana

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Javanese, romanization of ꦏꦤꦱ꧀

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 22 sources across 11 countries.

Reference works 6

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Kanas mean?
Recorded meaning: Dažnai gali būti pravardinė, sietina su liet.
In which country does Kanas have the most bearers?
In Poland, the national register counted about 339 people named Kanas, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Kanas?
In Poland, the national register counted 339 people named Kanas in 2026, about 1 in 113 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Kanas?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kanas

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Kanas”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kanas parses inside a full name →