Kamau

surname · Latin script

Meaning: a male given name from Kikuyu

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/kamau/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Kamau is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Kenya than in any other country, where it is the 58th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • KEKenya≈1 in 206(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 214K
  • MMMyanmar (Burma)≈1 in 483

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.

Kenya (inferred from the name graph)

≈260,000 people, est.

Sources
225 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 206 (inferred from the name graph)

Kenya, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

a male given name from Kikuyu

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kamau 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.

Where Kamau is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
KE Kenya#58≈260,000 est.≈1 in 2069Kamau118
MM Myanmar (Burma)#328≈120,000 est.≈1 in 483—Kamau1
US United States—1,5521 in 214K2.2KKamau225
ZM Zambia—≈1,500 est.≈1 in 12K2Kamau8
TZ Tanzania—≈740 est.≈1 in 79K—Kamau15
FI Finland—921 in 61K92—8
KN St. Kitts & Nevis—41 in 13K4——

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: Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; ECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate results; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kamau is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Kenya, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Kàmau

50 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Kamau 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.

  • Quiet soldier

    as a nameThe book of African names

  • Quiet warrior

    as a nameThe book of African names

  • In ki, Kikuyu (Kenya): 'quiet warrior'

    as a nameAfrican Names

  • In German, aus Kenia stammender männl. Vom., der in der Kikuju- Sprache »ruhiger Krieger« bedeutet.

    as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

  • In bgz, green coconut fruit

    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)

19201940196019802000Kojo Kamau, b. 1939Catherine Kamau, b. 1987Charles Kamau, b. 1994Rebecca Kamau, b. 1999Leroy Kamau, b. 1999

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)

FormalDear Mr Kamau,
InformalHi Kamau,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 40 sources across 24 countries.

Official registers attesting Kamau
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202.2K#13,123
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.6K#17,992
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000528#39,240
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—92#13,581
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—34—
KE KenyaMzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners20229#6
KN St. Kitts & NevisSt Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 202620264#178
ZM ZambiaECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate results20212#41
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • 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 Kamau mean, and where does it come from?
a male given name from Kikuyu Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Kamau?
A machine transcription gives /kamau/ (IPA) for Swahili.
In which country does Kamau have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 259 thousand people named Kamau in Kenya, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kamau.
How common is the name Kamau?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,552 people named Kamau in 2010, about 1 in 214 thousand residents.
How common is Kamau compared with other names?
In Kenya, Kamau is the 58th most common surname of 179,147 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kamau?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kamau

The 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, “Kamau” — the 58th most common surname in Kenya. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kamau parses inside a full name →