Kalve
surname · Latin script
Meaning: smithy (the location where a smith (particularly a blacksmith) works)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kəv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kalve is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Norway than in any other country.
- NONorway1 in 18K(measured from records)
- EEEstonia≈1 in 19K
- FIFinland1 in 111K
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.
- Norway (measured from records)
- Sources
- 20 (measured from records)
- 1 in 18K (inferred from the name graph)
312 people
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
smithy (the location where a smith (particularly a blacksmith) works)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kalve 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.
312 people counted by SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); the ee-stat-nimed 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Kalve is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Latvian, kalēja darbnīca metāla sadzīves priekšmetu, būvdetaļu un darbarīku izgatavošanai, zirgu apkalšanai, arī lauksaimniecības mašīnu remontēšanai un mākslas priekšmetu izgatavošanai
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Rūpnīcas nodaļa, mehāniskās darbnīcas nodaļa, arī mehāniskā darbnīca, kurā noris kalšanas process
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, pilsēta Vācijā ("Calw"), Bādenes-Virtembergas federālajā zemē, 22300 iedzīvotāju (2013. g.)
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Kalves upe - Kaldabruņa, Dvietes pieteka
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
In Latvian, Parastā kalme ("Acorus calamus")
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Aadu Kalveb. 1899EEEstonian military personnel (1899-1941)
- Aivars Kalveb. 1937LVLatvian writer
- Mall Kalveb. 1952EEEstonian rhythmic gymnast, coach and sportsperson (1952-2017)
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 10 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 312 | #4,854 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 50 | #22,733 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 34 | #3,100 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 34 | #3,045 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 26 | #67,105 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 11 | #38,030 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 1
- 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
- What does the name Kalve mean, and where does it come from?
- smithy (the location where a smith (particularly a blacksmith) works) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Kalve?
- A machine transcription gives /kəv/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Kalve have the most bearers?
- In Norway, the national register counted about 312 people named Kalve, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Kalve most common?
- Kalve is densest in Norway, where the national register counts about 1 in 18 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Kalve?
- In Norway, the national register counted 312 people named Kalve, about 1 in 18 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kalve?
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/kalveThe 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, “Kalve”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.