Kolk
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kolk is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country. In English, recorded as An underwater vortex similar to a whirlwind, capable of dislodging, picking up, and moving boulders.
- NLNetherlands1 in 11K(measured from records)
- EEEstonia≈1 in 3.1K
- FIFinland1 in 59K
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.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- Sources
- 90 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.1K (inferred from the name graph)
1,581 people, 2007
Highest-authority source
Estonia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
nd. 'water hole'; also from the stem Kolke
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Kolk is read(measured from records)
Kolk is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- English49%
An underwater vortex similar to a whirlwind, capable of dislodging, picking up, and moving boulders.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Dutch24%
vortex, maelstrom
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German12%
nd. 'water hole'; also from the stem Kolke
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Toponymic surname, from a place name or dwelling/landscape feature.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
scour, pothole (underwater hollow caused by erosion)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Kolk 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | #299 | 1,581 | 1 in 11K | 1.6K | Kolk | 90 |
| US United States | — | 723 | 1 in 460K | 723 | Kolk | 53 |
| EE Estonia | #123 | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | 315 | Kolk | 42 |
| PL Poland | — | 209 | 1 in 183K | 108 | Kolk | 27 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 608K | — | Kolk | 14 |
| FI Finland | — | 95 | 1 in 59K | 95 | Kolk | 2 |
| PT Portugal | — | ≈92 est. | ≈1 in 112K | — | Kolk | 4 |
1,581 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); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the ee-stat-nimed register; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Kolk is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
topographic name for someone living near a hollow or gully, or (in Dutch) a pool.
as a nameDictionary of American Family 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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Scott Kolkb. 1905USAmerican actor (1905-1993)
- Raimond Kolkb. 1924EEEstonian writer (1924-1992)
- Hanco Kolkb. 1957NLDutch cartoonist (born 1957)
- Marek Kolkb. 1971EEEstonian poker player (born 1971)
- Kaspar Kolkb. 1971EEEstonian philologist, historian and translator (born 1971)
- Jüri Kolkb. 1972EEEstonian poet and translator (born 1972)
- Annely Kolkb. 1976EEEstonian diplomat (born 1976)
- Marek Kolkb. 1978EEEstonian mathematician (born 1978)
- Santi Kolkb. 1981NLDutch footballer
- Elisa Kolkb. 1997EEEstonian singer (born 1997)
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 19 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 1.6K | #917 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 723 | #31,906 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 714 | #34,217 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 646 | #33,333 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 315 | #119 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 292 | #148 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 108 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 108 | #28,124 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 101 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 101 | #29,290 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 95 | #13,257 |
| 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
- Where does the name Kolk come from?
- nd. 'water hole'; also from the stem Kolke Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What does the name Kolk mean?
- In English, An underwater vortex similar to a whirlwind, capable of dislodging, picking up, and moving boulders.
- In which country does Kolk have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 1.6 thousand people named Kolk, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kolk.
- How common is the name Kolk?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 1,581 people named Kolk in 2007, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
- How common is Kolk compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Kolk is the 299th most common surname of 284,143 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kolk?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kolkThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Kolk” — the 299th most common surname in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.