Kasten
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from mhd. käste 'box/chest'; also from occupations or place names
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kasten is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 17K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 76K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 176K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 300 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 17K (inferred from the name graph)
≈9,600 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from mhd. käste 'box/chest'; also from occupations or place names
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kasten 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈9,600 est. | ≈1 in 145K | — | Kasten | 3 |
| DE Germany | ≈4,700 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Kasten | 129 |
| US United States | 4,366 | 1 in 76K | 4.4K | Kasten | 300 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈370 est. | ≈1 in 176K | listed | Kasten | 23 |
| IT Italy | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 177K | — | Kasten | 5 |
| CU Cuba | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 69K | — | Kasten | 3 |
| IE Ireland | ≈70 est. | ≈1 in 74K | — | Kasten | 4 |
| BZ Belize | ≈12 est. | ≈1 in 33K | — | Kasten | 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010. 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)
Kasten 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.
from Middle High German kasten ‘chest’, ‘coffer’ or komkasten ‘grain bin’, hence a metonymic occupational name for the manager of a granary, and later for the treasurer of an estate or guild. See also Kastner.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
topographic name from the dialect word Kasten ‘crag’, ‘steep rock’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from an unexplained first element, perhaps part of a place name, + the adjectival suffix -en, a derivative of Latin -enius.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, box, crate
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, crate (e.g. for bottles)
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)
- Hermann Kastenb. 1885DEGerman politician (1885-1933)
- Lloyd August Kastenb. 1905USAmerican academic (1905-1999)
- Karl Kastenb. 1916USAmerican artist (1916-2010)
- Barbara Kastenb. 1936USAmerican photographer (born 1936)
- Bob Kastenb. 1942USAmerican politician
- Stan Kastenb. 1952USAmerican sports executive
- Jeremy Kastenb. 1971USAmerican film director
- Tim Kastenb. 1983DEGerman rugby union player
- Mona Kastenb. 1992DEGerman writer
- Lino Kastenb. 2001DEGerman association football 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 31 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.4K | #7,614 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.9K | #7,779 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.9K | #8,230 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Kasten mean, and where does it come from?
- from mhd. käste 'box/chest'; also from occupations or place names Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What are other forms of the name Kasten?
- In the etymology graph, Chaton is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Kasten have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 9.6 thousand people named Kasten in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kasten.
- How common is the name Kasten?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,366 people named Kasten in 2010, about 1 in 76 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kasten?
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/kastenThe 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, “Kasten”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.