Ker
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ker is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: one of the eight ancient Hungarian tribal names from the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian basin.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 12K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 49K
- USUnited States1 in 537K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 230 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)
≈67,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Kêr in DZ Algeria.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
one of the eight ancient Hungarian tribal names from the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian basin. The Ker tribe, led by a chief called Vata settled in what is now known as Bekes county, but King Steven I resettled the tribe in royal estates, far away from their original residence. Thus the 42 villages named after the Ker tribe are scattered around in Hungary.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ker 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈67,000 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Ker | 11 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Ker | 54 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 49K | — | Ker | 121 |
| DZ Algeria | ≈930 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Kêr | 11 |
| IT Italy | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 72K | — | Ker | 8 |
| US United States | 619 | 1 in 537K | 816 | Ker | 230 |
| SG Singapore | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Ker | 55 |
| CZ Czechia | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 44K | 10 | — | — |
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; MVČR — living population register 2017. 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Ker 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.
In English, A chief of the Luo people.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, William Paton, British scholar
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
variant of Carr.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Slovenian, because (by or for the cause that; on this account that; for the reason that)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In hit, Broad transcription of 𒆠𒅕
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)
- Robert Ker Porterb. 1777GBBritish artist, writer and diplomat (1777-1842)
- Ker Baillie Hamiltonb. 1804CABritish colonial governor (1804-1889)
- Hugh Ker Fosterb. 1810British poet
- Edward Mulganb. 1857NZnot in their usual nameFarmer, newspaper editor, teacher, school inspector (1857–1920)
- Charles Bennet, 8th Earl of Tankervilleb. 1897GBnot in their usual nameJustice of the Peace; RAF Captain (1897-1971)
- Ker-Chau LiTWTaiwanese statistician
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 32 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 357 | #17,668 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 262 | #17,668 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1991 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1989 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1983 | 5 | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Ker mean, and where does it come from?
- one of the eight ancient Hungarian tribal names from the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian basin. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- Is Ker a male or female name?
- Ker is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Ker have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 67 thousand people named Ker in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ker.
- How common is the name Ker?
- In the United States, the national register counted 619 people named Ker in 2020, about 1 in 537 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Ker?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kerThe same 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), 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, “Ker”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.