Kesava
given name · Latin script
Meaning: An ascetic also called Nārada; saw Buddha Atthadassī and was later Paviṭṭha Thera's previous birth (Ap.i.168; ThagA.i.185)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ksɑvə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kesava is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country.
- AOAngola≈1 in 241K(inferred from the name graph)
- IDIndonesia≈1 in 754K
- SESweden1 in 1.5M
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kesava itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nepal (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 121 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 241K (inferred from the name graph)
≈26,000 named Keshab, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Angola, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Keshab in SA Saudi Arabia, NP Nepal, QA Qatar and 5 more.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
An ascetic also called Nārada; saw Buddha Atthadassī and was later Paviṭṭha Thera's previous birth (Ap.i.168; ThagA.i.185).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kesava 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | — | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Keshab | 59 |
| BD Bangladesh | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Keshab | 13 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | — | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 85K | — | Keshab | 10 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 754K | — | Kesava | 8 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | Keshab | 17 |
| QA Qatar | #765 | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 9.9K | — | Keshab | 10 |
| AO Angola | — | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 241K | — | Keshab | 1 |
| KW Kuwait | — | ≈43 est. | ≈1 in 69K | — | Keshab | 6 |
| BH Bahrain | — | ≈22 est. | ≈1 in 70K | — | Keshab | 2 |
| SE Sweden | — | 7 | 1 in 1.5M | 7 | Kesava | 4 |
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: Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Kesava 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 pi, An ascetic in Himavā, identified with Baka Brahmā; his story is in the Kesava Jātaka (J.iii.145; S.i.114).
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, Another name for Vāsudeva, so called because of his beautiful hair (J.iv.84; PvA.94).
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, An ascetic in Himavā. His story is given in the Kesava Jātaka. He is identified with Baka Brahmā.’ He is sometimes addressed as Kesi.2 J . iii. 145; S. 1. 114; SA. i. l65; M A . i. 555. 2 E.g., I . iff. 144, 362.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In pi, An Ascetic, also called Nārada. He saw the Buddha Atthadassī and paid him homage. He was a previous birth of Paviṭṭha Thera, who is evidently identical with Ekadaṃsaniya.’ A p . 1. 168; ThagA. i . 185.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
name of many men (P); Batukabhairava
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
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.
How to address them(machine-generated)
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)
No register attests this spelling yet
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Kesava mean, and where does it come from?
- An ascetic also called Nārada; saw Buddha Atthadassī and was later Paviṭṭha Thera's previous birth (Ap.i.168; ThagA.i.185). Recorded by Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh).
- How do you pronounce Kesava?
- A machine transcription gives /ksɑvə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Kesava a male or female name?
- Kesava 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 Kesava have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 26 thousand people named Keshab in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kesava?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 7 people named Kesava, about 1 in 1.5 million residents.
- How common is Kesava compared with other names?
- In Qatar, Kesava is the 765th most common given name of 12,797 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kesava?
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/kesavaThe 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, “Kesava” — the 765th most common given name in Qatar. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.