Katsu

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in Japanese: Rōmaji transcription of かつ

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

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

Katsu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • BRBrazil1 in 10M(measured from records)

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Brazil (measured from records)

21 people, 2022

Sources
8 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 10M (inferred from the name graph)

Brazil

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Rōmaji transcription of かつ

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

How Katsu is read(measured from records)

Katsu is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.

  • Japanese76%

    Rōmaji transcription of かつ

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • English14%

    A word shouted out in Zen Buddhism (as well as other sects of Buddhism), and in East Asian martial arts schools, used to help focus the energy (気 (ki)), and thereby induce an enlightened state.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Katsu 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 Katsu is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil211 in 10M43——
US United States———Katsu7
PE Peru———Katsu8
CL Chile——1Katsu8
AR Argentina———Katsu6
CO Colombia———Katsu3

21 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021). 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)

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

  • French given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France

    Also written Kàtsù

31 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)

Katsu is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Spanish, Victoria

    as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado

  • In Indonesian, katsu: Panko breaded and deep-fried Japanese food

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In pwn, carry

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In Basque, ( AN-larr ap. Asp Leiz ). Tuerto. Itsua katsueri argiaz mintzo . Or EG 1954 (9-10), 149.

    as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia

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)

18001850190019502000Katsu Kokichi, b. 1802Katsu Kaishu, b. 1823Koroku Katsu, b. 1852Shintarō Katsu, b. 1931Eijirō Katsu, b. 1950Alma Katsu, b. 1959Seiji Katsu, b. 1961Minami Katsu, b. 1998Noriko Katsu, b. 2000

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)

Informalこんにちは、KatsuさんHi Katsu, (English)

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 10 sources across 7 countries.

Official registers attesting Katsu
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—43#116,436

Reference works 2

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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 Katsu mean, and where does it come from?
Rōmaji transcription of かつ Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Katsu?
A machine transcription gives /kɑtsu/ (IPA) for Japanese.
Is Katsu a male or female name?
Katsu is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Katsu have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 21 people named Katsu, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Katsu most common?
Katsu is densest in Brazil, where the national register counts about 1 in 10 million people carrying it.
How common is the name Katsu?
In Brazil, the national register counted 21 people named Katsu in 2022, about 1 in 10 million residents.

What do you want to know about Katsu?

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/katsu

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, “Katsu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Katsu parses inside a full name →