Kleist
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname from a settlement in Pomerania, specifically Kleist (heute Kleszcze) bei Köslin (heute Koszalin); bearer count 996
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kleist is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- DKDenmark
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname from a settlement in Pomerania, specifically Kleist (heute Kleszcze) bei Köslin (heute Koszalin); bearer count 996.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Kleist is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, probably a habitational name of Slavic origin, from a place near Koslin in Pomerania.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Toponymischer Familienname zu Kleisto/Kleist; historische Formen Kleist 1564, von Kleist 1778, Kleisto 12./13. Jh. 104 Träger (1942), 338 in Polen.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In Croatian, prvi od velikih njemačkih dramatičara 19. st., preteča moderne drame; realisti, ekspresionisti, nacionalisti i egzistencijalisti u Francuskoj i Njemačkoj nalazili su u njemu neka svoja ishodišta
as a wordHrvatski jezični portal (HJP) dictionary export
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)
- Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorfb. 1762DEPrussian general (1762-1823)
- Georg von Kleistb. 1852DEGerman politician (1852-1923)
- James Kleistb. 1873USAmerican Jesuit scholar of patristic literature
- Karl Kleistb. 1879DEGerman psychiatrist (1879-1960)
- Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleistb. 1881DEGerman field marshal (1881–1954)
- Peter Kleistb. 1904DEGerman politician, writer, and diplomat (1904–1971)
- Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzinb. 1922DEGerman resistance member (1922–2013)
- Ingo Kleistb. 1938DEGerman politician
- Kuupik Kleistb. 1958GLGreenlandic politician
- Reinhard Kleistb. 1970DEGerman graphic designer and cartoonist (b. 1970)
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 26 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.5K | #18,166 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.5K | #17,494 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.5K | #18,635 |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2012 | 584 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2011 | 583 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2018 | 577 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2017 | 577 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2016 | 576 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2015 | 575 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2019 | 571 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2021 | 570 | — |
| GL Greenland | Statistics Greenland — Surnames (NAXT1) | 2020 | 568 | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Kleist mean, and where does it come from?
- Toponymic surname from a settlement in Pomerania, specifically Kleist (heute Kleszcze) bei Köslin (heute Koszalin); bearer count 996. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- In which country does Kleist have the most bearers?
- Kleist is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Kleist?
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/kleistThe 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, “Kleist”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.