Koester
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 1. Low German form of Kiister ‘sexton’ (see Kuster)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 11 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
Koester is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Belize it is the 55th most common surname.
- BZBelize≈1 in 7.4Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- AGAntigua & Barbuda≈1 in 17Kfew records
- DEGermany≈1 in 21K
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 Koester 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 332 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.4K (inferred from the name graph)
7,380 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Belize, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Køster in DK Denmark.
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)1. Low German form of Kiister ‘sexton’ (see Kuster). 2. variant of Koster.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Koester 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 7,380 | 1 in 45K | 7.4K | Koester | 332 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈4,100 est. | ≈1 in 21K | listed | — | 4 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈880 est. | ≈1 in 73K | — | Koester | 10 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈790 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Koester | 47 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈760 est. | ≈1 in 91K | — | Koester | 36 |
| DK Denmark | — | 306as Køster | 1 in 19K | 306 | Køster | 36 |
| BZ Belize | #55 | ≈57 est. | ≈1 in 7.4K | — | Koester | 1 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #744 | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Koester | 1 |
7,380 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); the dfa-band-5 register. 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).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Hans von Koesterb. 1844DEGerman admiral (1844-1928)
- Alexander Koesterb. 1864DEGerman painter (1864-1932)
- Frank Koesterb. 1876USGerman-American engineer, urban planner & writer (1876–1927)
- Willy Koesterb. 1902BEBelgian-German composer and conductor
- Charles Roman Koesterb. 1915USCatholic bishop (1915-1997)
- Helmut Koesterb. 1926DEGerman-born American scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity (1926-2016)
- Bev Koesterb. 1926CACanadian civil servant
- Ulrich Koesterb. 1938DEGerman university teacher
- Jan Koesterb. 1953DEGerman actor and voice actor
- Jolene KoesterUSAmerican academic
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)21 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 7.4K | #4,789 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 7K | #4,609 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.7K | #5,099 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 27 | #18,327 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 5 | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
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
- Where does the name Koester come from?
- 1. Low German form of Kiister ‘sexton’ (see Kuster). 2. variant of Koster. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What does the name Koester mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. Low German form of Kiister ‘sexton’ (see Kuster).
- In which country does Koester have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 7.4 thousand people named Koester, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled koester.
- How common is the name Koester?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,380 people named Koester in 2010, about 1 in 45 thousand residents.
- How common is Koester compared with other names?
- In Belize, Koester is the 55th most common surname of 11,408 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Koester?
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/koesterThe 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, “Koester” — the 55th most common surname in Belize. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.