Kalashnikov
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Russian-designed automatic rifle
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kəˈɫæʃnɪˌkɑv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kalashnikov is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country.
- RURussia≈1 in 4.4Kas Калашников(inferred from the name graph)
- UAUkraine≈1 in 14Kas Калашніков
- KGKyrgyzstan≈1 in 28K
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 Kalashnikov 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.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 164 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
≈32,000 named Калашников, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Kyrgyzstan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
3 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Калашников in RU Russia, KG Kyrgyzstan, BY Belarus and 1 more and Калашніков in UA Ukraine.
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)
Russian-designed automatic rifle
Sources 1
- Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kalashnikov 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #400 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Калашников | 164 |
| UA Ukraine | #958 | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Калашніков | 42 |
| BY Belarus | — | ≈560 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Калашников | 19 |
| UZ Uzbekistan | — | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 87K | — | Калашников | 7 |
| PL Poland | — | 238 | 1 in 161K | 238 | Kalashnikov | 12 |
| KG Kyrgyzstan | — | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Калашников | 14 |
| TT Trinidad & Tobago | — | ≈19 est. | ≈1 in 64K | — | Kalashnikov | 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: dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). 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)
Kalashnikov is also recorded in 2 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 particular model of Russian assault rifle.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, a Kalashnikov assault rifle
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)
- Aleksandra Kalashnikovb. 1884Russian peasant
- Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikovb. 1919RUSoviet and Russian small arms designer (1919–2013)
- Leonid Kalashnikovb. 1926RUSoviet camera operator (1926-2005)
- Victor Kalashnikovb. 1942RURussian firearm designer (1942–2018)
- Leonid Kalashnikovb. 1960RUDeputy Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
- Oleg Kalashnikovb. 1962UAUkrainian politician (1962-2015)
- Andriy Kalashnikovb. 1964UAOlympic wrestler
- Maxim Kalashnikovb. 1966RURussian writer
- Vyacheslav Kalashnikovb. 1985RURussian footballer
- Oksana Kalashnikovab. 1990GEnot in their usual nameGeorgian female tennis player
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 12 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 238 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 238 | #13,693 |
Reference works 1
- Wikipedia surname tokens
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 Kalashnikov mean, and where does it come from?
- Russian-designed automatic rifle Recorded by Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names.
- How do you pronounce Kalashnikov?
- A machine transcription gives /kəˈɫæʃnɪˌkɑv/ (IPA) for Russian.
- In which country does Kalashnikov have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 32 thousand people named Калашников in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kalashnikov?
- In Poland, the national register counted 238 people named Kalashnikov in 2026, about 1 in 161 thousand residents.
- How common is Kalashnikov compared with other names?
- In Russia, Kalashnikov is the 400th most common surname of 1,952,411 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kalashnikov?
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/kalashnikovThe 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, “Kalashnikov” — the 400th most common surname in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.