Kestler
surname · Latin script
Meaning: variant of Kastner
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkɛstɫɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kestler is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CZCzechia1 in 153K(measured from records)
- DKDenmark1 in 245K
- USUnited States1 in 323K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 90 (measured from records)
- 1 in 153K (inferred from the name graph)
1,030 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
variant of Kastner.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kestler 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,030 | 1 in 323K | 1.2K | Kestler | 19 |
| AR Argentina | 115 | 1 in 395K | 115 | — | — |
| CZ Czechia | 70 | 1 in 153K | 70 | — | — |
| DK Denmark | 24 | 1 in 245K | 24 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 15 | 1 in 560K | 15 | — | 1 |
1,030 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); MVČR — living population register 2017; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Andreas Kestlerb. 1650DEGerman architect
- Josef Kestlerb. 1887CZholocaust victim, b. 1887-02-04
- Josef Kestlerb. 1910Czechoslovak politician (1910-1987)
- Kurt Kestlerb. 1922DEGerman politician (1922-2003)
- Hans-Günter Kestlerb. 1939DEGerman chess player
- Ole Kestlerb. 1948badminton player
- Viola Kestlerb. 1959DEGerman rower
- Hans A Kestlerb. 1965DEresearcher
- Amalie Kestlerb. 1976DKDanish journalist
- Johann Stephan Kestlerphysiologist (floruit 1680)
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.2K | #20,556 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.2K | #22,298 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1K | #24,339 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 115 | — |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 70 | #22,783 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 70 | #9,129 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 24 | #20,170 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 15 | #45,119 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
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 Kestler mean, and where does it come from?
- variant of Kastner. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kestler?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɛstɫɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kestler have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.0 thousand people named Kestler, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kestler.
- Where is Kestler most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kestler is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 153 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kestler?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,030 people named Kestler in 2010, about 1 in 323 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kestler?
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/kestlerThe 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, “Kestler”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.