Kostka
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 1. possibly a nickname for a bony, angular person, from a derivative of kost ‘knucklebone’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkɑstkə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kostka is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- PLPoland1 in 7.3K(measured from records)
- CZCzechia1 in 6.8K
- SKSlovakia1 in 9.8K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kostka itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 95 (measured from records)
- 1 in 6.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈7,700 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Костко in BY Belarus, TW Taiwan, CN China.
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)
1. possibly a nickname for a bony, angular person, from a derivative of kost ‘knucklebone’. 2. more probably a derivative of the Latin personal name Constantius or Constantinus (see Kost, Constant, Constantine).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kostka 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈7,700 est. | ≈1 in 182K | — | Костко | 3 |
| PL Poland | — | 5,222 | 1 in 7.3K | 2.6K | Kostka | 72 |
| CZ Czechia | #818 | 1,582 | 1 in 6.8K | 1.6K | Kostka | 59 |
| US United States | — | 1,280 | 1 in 260K | 1.3K | Kostka | 66 |
| SK Slovakia | #696 | 554 | 1 in 9.8K | 554 | Kostka | 34 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 102K | — | Костко | 1 |
| BY Belarus | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 53K | — | Костко | 11 |
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: dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census). 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)
Kostka 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 Polish, diminutive of kość (“bone”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Czech, die (polyhedron used in games of chance)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
— žr. Kastkčvičius
as a nameLietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
In Russian, dim of Konstiantin.
as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)
In zlw-opl, bones, remains of saints' bodies, relics
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)
- Jan Kostkab. 1529PLPolish noble
- Stanislaus Kostkab. 1550PLPolish Jesuit, saint, secondary patron of Poland (1550–1568)
- Aleksander Kostka Napierskib. 1620PLPolish captain
- Carl Kostkab. 1870CZCzechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, senator of Czechoslovak National Parliament, German nation politician and mayor (1870-1957)
- Jiří Kostkab. 1910CZCzech actor (1910–1985)
- Jozef Kostkab. 1912SKSlovak sculptor (1912–1996)
- Vladimír Kostkab. 1922CZCzech ice hockey player and coach (1922-2009)
- Petr Kostkab. 1938CZCzech dubbing actor and actor
- Hubert Kostkab. 1940PLPolish association football player and manager
- Mike Kostkab. 1985CACanadian ice hockey player
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 34 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 2.6K | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 2.6K | #948 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 2.6K | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 2.6K | #938 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 1.6K | #797 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 1.6K | #795 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.3K | #19,398 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.3K | #20,676 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.2K | #22,066 |
| SK Slovakia | JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census) | 1995 | 554 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Lietuvių kalbos institutas — Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Lithuanian surname dictionary)
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
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 Kostka come from?
- 1. possibly a nickname for a bony, angular person, from a derivative of kost ‘knucklebone’. 2. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kostka?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɑstkə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Kostka mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. possibly a nickname for a bony, angular person, from a derivative of kost ‘knucklebone’.
- In which country does Kostka have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 7.7 thousand people named Kostka in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled костко.
- Where is Kostka most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kostka is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 6.8 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kostka?
- In Poland, the national register counted 5,222 people named Kostka in 2026, about 1 in 7.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Kostka compared with other names?
- In Slovakia, Kostka is the 696th most common surname of 69,668 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kostka?
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/kostkaThe 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, “Kostka” — the 696th most common surname in Slovakia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.