Kosel
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from a Slavic word meaning ‘he-goat’, e.g
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 12 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/ˈkoʊsəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kosel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 61K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 494K
- MLMali≈1 in 42K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 155 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 42K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,300 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Mali, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)from a Slavic word meaning ‘he-goat’, e.g. Polish dialect koziel. Compare Koziol
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Kosel 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 61K | — | Kosel | 86 |
| US United States | — | 673 | 1 in 494K | 674 | Kosel | 155 |
| ML Mali | — | ≈470 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Kosel | 1 |
| PL Poland | — | 361 | 1 in 106K | 181 | Kosel | 1 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | Kosel | 23 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 30 | 1 in 70K | 30 | — | 4 |
| SH St. Helena | #571 | — | — | — | Kosel | 1 |
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 2020; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). 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)Kosel 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.
variant of Kusel 1, a nickname meaning ‘spinning top’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
habitational name from places named Kosel, in eastern Germany and Schleswig-Holstein.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, from Slavic kozel 'goat'; also from Slavic kösla(wy) 'crooked-legged' or from kos
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In kw, quiet
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)- Mansuet Johann Koselb. 1856PLAustrian servant (1856–1919)
- Hermann Clemens Koselb. 1867ATAustrian artist, photographer and writer
- Hermann Koselb. 1896ATAustrian painter (1896-1983)
- Gerhard Koselb. 1909DEGerman politician (1909-2003)
- Sieghard Koselb. 1939DEGerman politician and journalist
- Franc Koselb. 1943SImechanical engineer from Slovenia
- Heiko Koselb. 1966DEGerman politician
- Bogusław KoselPLPolish historian
- Tadej KoselSIresearcher
- Janez KoselSIresearcher
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)21 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 674 | #35,833 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 673 | #33,810 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 625 | #34,308 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 181 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 181 | #18,049 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 180 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 180 | #17,848 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 30 | #10,691 |
| 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 Kosel come from?
- from a Slavic word meaning ‘he-goat’, e.g. Polish dialect koziel. Compare Koziol Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kosel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkoʊsəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Kosel mean?
- Recorded meaning: from a Slavic word meaning ‘he-goat’, e.g.
- In which country does Kosel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.3 thousand people named Kosel in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kosel.
- How common is the name Kosel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 673 people named Kosel in 2010, about 1 in 494 thousand residents.
- How common is Kosel compared with other names?
- In St. Helena, Kosel is the 571st most common surname of 3,440 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kosel?
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/koselThe 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, “Kosel” — the 571st most common surname in St. Helena. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.