Kraan

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Dutch: crane (machine for lifting)

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Kraan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • NLNetherlands1 in 7K(measured from records)
  • EEEstonia≈1 in 117K
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 405K

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)

2,479 people, 2007

Sources
94 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 7.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Netherlands

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

crane (machine for lifting)

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

How Kraan is read(measured from records)

Kraan is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.

  • Dutch46%

    crane (machine for lifting)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • English27%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kraan in English.

  • Spanish7.5%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kraan in Spanish.

  • German5.7%

    Übername nach dem Vogel Kranich; wohl für eine langbeinige oder groß gewachsene Person; 17 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Kraan 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.

Where Kraan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NL Netherlands#4662,4791 in 7K2.5KKraan94
DE Germany—≈90 est.≈1 in 888K—Kraan35
US United States—≈81 est.≈1 in 4.1MlistedKraan69
CA Canada—≈65 est.≈1 in 582K—Kraan46
AU Australia—≈63 est.≈1 in 405K—Kraan40
BE Belgium—221 in 533K22Kraan7
EE Estonia—≈11 est.≈1 in 117K7—2

2,479 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); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kraan is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Turkish surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Netherlands

    Also written Kräan

35 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Kraan is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In nds (Germany), crane (bird)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Estonian, tap, faucet

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In hrx, faucet

    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)

1850190019502000Arnoldus Teunis Kraan, b. 1877Greetje Kraan, b. 1901Johannes Kraan, b. 1901Gerda Kraan, b. 1933Hanna Kraan, b. 1946Rashid Novaire, b. 1979

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 13 sources across 8 countries.

Official registers attesting Kraan
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)20072.5K#461
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)200822#45,034
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—7#14,106
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—5#16,294
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • 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

What does the name Kraan mean, and where does it come from?
crane (machine for lifting) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Kraan?
In the etymology graph, KRan is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Kraan have the most bearers?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 2.5 thousand people named Kraan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kraan.
Where is Kraan most common?
Kraan is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 7.0 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Kraan?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted 2,479 people named Kraan in 2007, about 1 in 7.0 thousand residents.
How common is Kraan compared with other names?
In the Netherlands, Kraan is the 466th most common surname of 284,143 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kraan?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kraan

The 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, “Kraan” — the 466th most common surname in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kraan parses inside a full name →