Kosten
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Middle High German kost ‘provisions’, ‘board’, ‘livelihood’, but in some cases probably a shortened form of Kostenbader
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/koʊstən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kosten is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 961K(measured from records)
- NLNetherlands1 in 39K
- IEIreland≈1 in 88K
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
- 148 (measured from records)
- 1 in 39K (inferred from the name graph)
438 people, 2007
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
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 Middle High German kost ‘provisions’, ‘board’, ‘livelihood’, but in some cases probably a shortened form of Kostenbader.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kosten 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 | 438 | 1 in 39K | 438 | Kosten | 29 |
| US United States | 346 | 1 in 961K | 394 | Kosten | 148 |
| DE Germany | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 472K | — | Kosten | 39 |
| AR Argentina | 130 | 1 in 350K | 130 | — | — |
| IE Ireland | ≈59 est. | ≈1 in 88K | — | Kosten | 1 |
| BE Belgium | 46 | 1 in 255K | 46 | Kosten | 9 |
| LR Liberia | ≈29 est. | ≈1 in 173K | — | Kosten | 1 |
| SI Slovenia | 23 | 1 in 91K | 23 | — | — |
438 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); 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)
Kosten is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, to cost
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, from a reduced vernacular form of the personal name Konstant or Konstantin (see Constant, Constantine).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, habitational name from a place so named in Tyrol.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, (pl) costs, expenses
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In Danish, definite singular of kost
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)
- Malka Köstenb. 1885UAHolocaust victim (born 1885)
- Anthony C. Kostenb. 1958FRBritish-French chess player
- Annabel Kostenb. 1977NLswimmer
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 18 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 438 | #4,517 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 394 | #56,084 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 369 | #52,714 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 346 | #58,604 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 130 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 46 | #27,785 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 23 | #12,495 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
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 Kosten mean, and where does it come from?
- from Middle High German kost ‘provisions’, ‘board’, ‘livelihood’, but in some cases probably a shortened form of Kostenbader. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kosten?
- A machine transcription gives /koʊstən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kosten have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 438 people named Kosten, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kosten.
- Where is Kosten most common?
- Kosten is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 39 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Kosten?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 438 people named Kosten in 2007, about 1 in 39 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kosten?
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/kostenThe 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, “Kosten”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.