Kontos
surname · Latin script
Meaning: nickname for a short man, from kontos ‘short’; also a reduced form of any of various surnames formed with Konto- as a prefix, e.g
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkɑntoʊz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kontos is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GRGreece≈1 in 19K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 205K
- CYCyprus≈1 in 22K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 219 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 19K (inferred from the name graph)
1,621 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Greece, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Κοντος in GR Greece.
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)
nickname for a short man, from kontos ‘short’; also a reduced form of any of various surnames formed with Konto- as a prefix, e.g. Kontogiannis ‘short John’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kontos 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 | — | 1,621 | 1 in 205K | 1.6K | Kontos | 219 |
| GR Greece | #739 | ≈550 est. | ≈1 in 19K | 10 | Κοντος | 80 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 239K | — | Kontos | 51 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 122K | — | Kontos | 61 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 461K | — | Kontos | 39 |
| HU Hungary | — | ≈90 est. | ≈1 in 109K | — | Kontos | 24 |
| CY Cyprus | — | ≈57 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Kontos | 16 |
1,621 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; Διαύγεια — directory of signing officials (organization → signers). 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)
Kontos 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 Greek, from kontos ‘gown’, ‘short fur coat’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a furrier or a maker of coats.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Swedish, indefinite genitive singular of konto
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, genitive singular of Konto
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In io, future of kontar
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Petros Ē. Kontosb. 1874GRGreek writer and forestry expert
- Dimitris Kontosb. 1931GRGreek painter (1931–1996)
- Yannis Kondosb. 1943GRnot in their usual nameGreek writer
- Apostolos Kontosb. 1949GRbasketball player and coach
- Chris Kontosb. 1963CAice hockey player
- Chris Kontosb. 1968USAmerican drummer
- George Kontosb. 1985USbaseball player from the United States
- Christos K. KontosGRresearcher
- Christos KontosGRGreek high school teacher and head master of Preveza's Gymnasium
- Dimitris KontosGRGreek actor
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 20 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.6K | #17,406 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.3K | #19,806 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.1K | #23,499 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- 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)
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 Kontos come from?
- nickname for a short man, from kontos ‘short’; also a reduced form of any of various surnames formed with Konto- as a prefix, e.g. Kontogiannis ‘short John’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kontos?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɑntoʊz/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Kontos mean?
- Recorded meaning: nickname for a short man, from kontos ‘short’; also a reduced form of any of various surnames formed with Konto- as a prefix, e.g.
- In which country does Kontos have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.6 thousand people named Kontos, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kontos.
- How common is the name Kontos?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,621 people named Kontos in 2010, about 1 in 205 thousand residents.
- How common is Kontos compared with other names?
- In Greece, Kontos is the 739th most common surname of 112,415 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kontos?
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/kontosThe 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, “Kontos” — the 739th most common surname in Greece. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.