Kivi

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Estonian: stone, rock

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

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

Kivi is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • EEEstonia1 in 1.5K(measured from records)
  • FIFinland1 in 1.8K
  • LVLatvia≈1 in 6.8K

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.

Finland (measured from records)

3,040 people

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
43 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Estonia

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

KiviLatin(measured from records)
КивиCyrillic(measured from records)

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)

stone, rock (material)

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Kivi is read(measured from records)

Kivi is one spelling over 3 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.

  • English54%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kivi in English.

  • Estonian13%

    stone, rock

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

  • Finnish6.8%

    stone, rock (material)

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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

Kivi 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 Kivi is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FI Finland—3,0401 in 1.8K3KKivi38
EE Estonia#5348131 in 1.5K813Kivi19
US United States—5531 in 602K621Kivi43
TZ Tanzania—≈310 est.≈1 in 192K—Kivi4
LV Latvia—≈280 est.≈1 in 6.8K—Kivi7
SE Sweden—1321 in 77K132Kivi11

3,040 people counted by DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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: DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Statistics Estonia — Ees- ja perekonnanimed (Population Register); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

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

  • Russian surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Киви, Ківі, Kiwi

45 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)

Kivi 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 nho, bird taxon: Pacific Golden Plover [Pluvialis fulva]; Mongolian Plover [Charadrius mongolia]; Wandering Tattler [Tringa incana]

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

  • In Latvian, kiwi bird (a flightless bird (genus Apteryx) found only in New Zealand)

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

  • In Czech, kiwi (flightless bird of the genus Apteryx, native to New Zealand)

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

  • In sky, a small wading bird, the Ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres)

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

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)

1850190019502000Aleksander Kivi, b. 1894Antero Kivi, b. 1904Raul-Levroit Kivi, b. 1920Eve Kivi, b. 1938Kalju Kivi, b. 1951Signe Kivi, b. 1957Kai Kivi, b. 1959Karri Kivi, b. 1970Marya Roxx, b. 1986Sami-Sander Kivi, b. 1990
  • Aleksander Kivib. 1894EEEstonian surveyor and local historian (1894–1985)
  • Antero Kivib. 1904FIFinnish discus thrower (1904–1981)
  • Raul-Levroit Kivib. 1920EEEstonian architect (1920-2009)
  • Eve Kivib. 1938EEEstonian actress (born 1938)
  • Kalju Kivib. 1951EEEstonian film director (1951-2025)
  • Signe Kivib. 1957EEEstonian politician and textile artist (born 1957)
  • Kai Kivib. 1959FIFinnish singer and guitarist (1959-2007)
  • Karri Kivib. 1970FIFinnish ice hockey player and coach
  • Marya Roxxb. 1986EEnot in their usual nameEstonian recording artist and singer (born 1986)
  • Sami-Sander Kivib. 1990EEEstonian association footballer (born 1990)

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)

FormalDear Kivi,
InformalHi Kivi,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 24 sources across 12 countries.

Official registers attesting Kivi
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—3K#643
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—1.2K—
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — Ees- ja perekonnanimed (Population Register)—813#24
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—813#19
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—693#29
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000621#34,503
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020553#42,249
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010553#39,717
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—132#5,792
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • 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

Where does the name Kivi come from?
stone, rock (material) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What does the name Kivi mean?
In Estonian, stone, rock
What are other forms of the name Kivi?
In the etymology graph, Kiviniemi, Kivioja and Kiviranta are forms of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Kivi?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɪvi/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Kivi have the most bearers?
In Finland, the national register counted about 3.0 thousand people named Kivi, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kivi.
Where is Kivi most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kivi is densest in Estonia — about 1 in 1.5 thousand people — even though Finland holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Kivi?
In Finland, the national register counted 3,040 people named Kivi, about 1 in 1.8 thousand residents.
How common is Kivi compared with other names?
In Estonia, Kivi is the 534th most common surname of 37,297 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kivi?

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/kivi

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, “Kivi” — the 534th most common surname in Estonia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kivi parses inside a full name →