Koe
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/koʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Koe is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Korea than in any other country, where it is the 22nd most common surname.
- KRSouth Korea1 in 110as 고(measured from records)
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 389as Ko
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 2.8Kas Go
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Koe itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Korea (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 419 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 40K (inferred from the name graph)
471,429 named 고, 2015
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Côte d’Ivoire, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Ko in PH Philippines, HK Hong Kong, CN China and 1 more and 고 in KR South Korea, MO Macao.
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
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Koe 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KR South Korea | #22 | 471,429as 고 | 1 in 110 | 487K | 고 | 208 |
| CN China | — | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Ko | 42 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Ko | 161 |
| KP North Korea | #45 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 12 | Ko | 36 |
| HK Hong Kong | #136 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 389 | — | Ko | 97 |
| MO Macao | #23 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 320 | — | 고 | 4 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | — | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 40K | 236 | — | 3 |
471,429 people counted by KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants, 2015. 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: KOSIS 2015 Census — surname population with hanja variants; KOSIS — 2015 census surnames; nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Koe is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Dutch, cow; a female of certain mammals, in particular bovines
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Finnish, experiment (test under controlled conditions)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In niu, singular 2nd person pronoun: you
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In rap, second person singular; you
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of こえ
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Estonian, genitive singular of kude
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)
- Kenneth Koeb. 1925USAmerican chemist (1925-2015)
- Kevin Koeb. 1975CACanadian male curler
- Jamie Koeb. 1977CACanadian male curler
- Amanda Lee Koeb. 1988SGSingapore-American novelist and short story writer
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 16 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 236 | #1,831 |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- How do you pronounce Koe?
- A machine transcription gives /koʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Koe have the most bearers?
- In South Korea, the national register counted about 471 thousand people named 고, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Koe?
- In South Korea, the national register counted 471,429 people named 고 in 2015, about 1 in 110 residents.
- How common is Koe compared with other names?
- In South Korea, Koe is the 22nd most common surname of 14,133 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Koe?
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/koeThe 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, “Koe” — the 22nd most common surname in South Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.