Castellan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from ME/ONFr castelain 'governor or constable of a castle'; also from Castellion (Eure); first attested Hugh le Chastelein 1235 FFEss
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 14 countries · latest register: INSEE, 1991
/ˈkæstələn/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Castellan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Italy than in any other country.
- UYUruguay1 in 42K(measured from records)
- GTGuatemala≈1 in 50Kfew records
- NONorway1 in 76K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Italy (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 75 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 40K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,500 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Italy, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from ME/ONFr castelain 'governor or constable of a castle'; also from Castellion (Eure); first attested Hugh le Chastelein 1235 FFEss
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Castellan 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IT Italy | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 40K | listed | Castellan | 23 |
| FR France | ≈690 est. | ≈1 in 99K | 57 | — | 1 |
| BR Brazil | 417 | 1 in 508K | 417 | Castellan | 63 |
| AR Argentina | 387 | 1 in 118K | 387 | Castellan | 35 |
| GT Guatemala | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 50K | — | Castellan | 13 |
| UY Uruguay | 81 | 1 in 42K | 81 | Castellan | 12 |
| NO Norway | 72 | 1 in 76K | 72 | — | 1 |
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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the xinhua-italian-manual register; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)Castellan is also recorded in 3 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 feudal lord with a fortified manor.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, redução dialetal setentrional de Castellano
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Romansh, steward, governor, overseer, sheriff, bailiff, administrator
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)- Noël-Georges Castellanb. 1764FRFrench soldier (1764-1812)
- Antoine-Laurent Castellanb. 1772FRFrench painter, architect, and engraver (1772-1838)
- Charles Castellanb. 1812MUMauritian poet
- Dominique Castellanb. 1856FRFrench catholic archibishop
- Georges Castellanb. 1920FRFrench historian (1920-2014)
- N. John Castellanb. 1939scientist
- Jacques Castellanb. 1945FRFrench association football player
- Osvaldo Castellanb. 1951ITcyclist (1951-2008)
- Carlos Castellanb. 1962ARtennis player
- Laurent Castellanb. 1975FRFrench politician
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)20 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 417 | #20,032 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 387 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 96 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 96 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 92 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 91 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 89 | — |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 81 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 81 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 76 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 73 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 72 | #20,092 |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Castellan mean, and where does it come from?
- from ME/ONFr castelain 'governor or constable of a castle'; also from Castellion (Eure); first attested Hugh le Chastelein 1235 FFEss Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Castellan?
- It depends on the language: in English /ˈkæstələn/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /kasteʎan/; in Portuguese /kɐʃtɛllɐ̃/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- In which country does Castellan have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 thousand people named Castellan in Italy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled castellan.
- How common is the name Castellan?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 417 people named Castellan, about 1 in 508 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Castellan?
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/castellanThe 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, “Castellan”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.