Kayan

surname · Latin script

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

Kayan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country. Recorded meaning: 1. Akarsu, sel. 2. Yassı, düz, kat kat oluşmuş taşlar.

rarermore common
  • DKDenmark1 in 202K(measured from records)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 288K
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 600K

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.

Netherlands (measured from records)

60 people, 2007

Sources
64 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 202K (inferred from the name graph)

Denmark

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

recorded in Turkish

1. Akarsu, sel. 2. Yassı, düz, kat kat oluşmuş taşlar.

Sources 1

  • TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kayan 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 Kayan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NL Netherlands601 in 288K71—2
DK Denmark291 in 202K29——
PL Poland161 in 2.4M12——
CH Switzerland141 in 600K14—5
ES Spain121 in 4.2M12—5
BE Belgium91 in 1.3M9——

60 people counted by CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007), 2007. 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: CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kayan is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, Philippines, Türkiye

    Languages: English, German, Chinese

    Also written Ka-Yan, Kay-An, Kaeýãn, Käýãn

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Türkiye, United States

    Also written Ka-Yan

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Ka-Yan

  • Thai surname30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, India, Malaysia, Türkiye

    Also written ขยัน, KhAYAN, Khayun, Kayun, ขยานี

47 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)

Kayan 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 English, A member of a subgroup of the Karenni people of Myanmar/Burma.

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

  • In Filipino, awning made of matting or nipa and used on boats

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

  • In Iloko, contraction of kayana

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

  • In nys, aunt

    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)

19401960198020002020Türabi Kayan, b. 1955Yalçın Kayan, b. 1999Cholan Kayan, b. 2003

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 52 sources across 30 countries.

Official registers attesting Kayan
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)200760#27,473
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—29#17,127
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202414#47,506
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)202612—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—12#121,410
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—12#109,635
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)20089#74,742
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)20264—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—4#224,710

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • 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 Kayan mean?
Recorded meaning: 1. Akarsu, sel. 2. Yassı, düz, kat kat oluşmuş taşlar.
In which country does Kayan have the most bearers?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 60 people named Kayan, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Kayan most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kayan is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 202 thousand people — even though Netherlands holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Kayan?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted 60 people named Kayan in 2007, about 1 in 288 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Kayan?

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

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Kayan”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kayan parses inside a full name →