Castell
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Castell is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country. In English, recorded as A human tower formed in festivals in Catalonia.
- ESSpain1 in 13K(measured from records)
- ARArgentina1 in 72K
- USUnited States1 in 354K
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.
- Spain (measured from records)
- Sources
- 125 (measured from records)
- 1 in 8.3K (inferred from the name graph)
3,981 people
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A human tower formed in festivals in Catalonia.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
How Castell is read(measured from records)
Castell is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English44%
A human tower formed in festivals in Catalonia.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
from MacAskell (Manx), cf. Askell; first attested MacAskel 1311
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
- Spanish41%
castell (human tower)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Catalan6.3%
castle (fortified structure)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French5.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Castell in French.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Castell 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | #990 | 3,981 | 1 in 13K | 4K | Castell | 125 |
| US United States | — | 939 | 1 in 354K | 1K | Castell | 107 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈700 est. | ≈1 in 94K | — | Castell | 37 |
| AR Argentina | — | 629 | 1 in 72K | 629 | Castell | 42 |
| FR France | — | ≈610 est. | ≈1 in 111K | 65 | — | 2 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 410 | 1 in 8.3K | 410 | Castell | 21 |
| SE Sweden | — | 128 | 1 in 80K | 128 | Castell | 7 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 1 | 1 in 54K | 1 | — | — |
3,981 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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: INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)
Castell is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Welsh, castle (fortified building)
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)
- Edmund Castellb. 1606GBEnglish orientalist (1606-1685)
- Wolfgang Georg I. zu Castell-Remlingenb. 1610DE(1610-1668)
- Wolfgang Dietrich zu Castell-Remlingenb. 1641DEGerman nobleman
- Antoni Castell de Ponsb. 1819ESSpanish politician and tenor (1819-1888)
- Adela Castellb. 1864UYUruguayan teacher, essayist, poet
- Vicent Fe Castellb. 1875ESSpanish politician and journalist (1875-1945)
- Rolf Castellb. 1921DEGerman actor and radio host (1921–2012)
- Patricia Castellb. 1926ARactress (1926-2013)
- Luis Díazb. 1977MXnot in their usual nameMexican racecar driver
- Lorena Castellb. 1981ESSpanish singer and television presenter
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 25 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 4K | #1,313 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 4K | #1,312 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1K | #25,516 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 999 | #23,657 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 939 | #26,086 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 629 | — |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 410 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 128 | #5,924 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 109 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 83 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 79 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 77 | — |
Reference works 5
- 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)
- 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 Castell mean, and where does it come from?
- A human tower formed in festivals in Catalonia. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Castell have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 4.0 thousand people named Castell, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled castell.
- Where is Castell most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Castell is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 8.3 thousand people — even though Spain holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Castell?
- In Spain, the national register counted 3,981 people named Castell, about 1 in 13 thousand residents.
- How common is Castell compared with other names?
- In Spain, Castell is the 990th most common surname of 395,154 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Castell?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/castellThe 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, “Castell” — the 990th most common surname in Spain. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.