Kuen
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from a Germanic name with ue/uo spelling; likely from Kuono
Used for both men and women· registers list it under both sexes; no split published
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 13 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/kuən/(machine-generated) Malay · model-generated
Kuen is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in North Korea than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 2.6Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 720K
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 13Kas Kun
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 Kuen itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- North Korea (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 216 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈12,000 named Kun, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Kun in US United States, AU Australia, NL Netherlands and 2 more.
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 Germanic name with ue/uo spelling; likely from Kuono
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Where in the world
(measured from records)Kuen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KP North Korea | #449 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Kun | 5 |
| IN India | — | ≈7,500 est. | ≈1 in 194K | 338 | — | 62 |
| HK Hong Kong | #255 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | — | Kuen | 45 |
| MY Malaysia | #1000 | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Kuen | 48 |
| US United States | — | 2,415as Kun | 1 in 138K | 1.5K | Kun | 216 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 69K | 1 | Kun | 82 |
| SG Singapore | #999 | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Kun | 44 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 24 | 1 in 720K | 44 | Kun | 20 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. 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)Kuen is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Norwegian Bokmål, definite masculine singular of ku
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Javanese, that, those
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)- Zhang Qunb. 1889TWnot in their usual nameChinese politician (1889–1990)
- Peter Yangb. 1935CNnot in their usual nameChinese actor, film director and film producer (1935–2022)
- Margaret Tu Chuanb. 1942CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actress
- He Qunb. 1956CNnot in their usual nameChinese film director
- Wang Qunb. 1960CNnot in their usual nameChinese actor, 1960-2008
- Sunny Fub. 1962CNnot in their usual nameChinese actress
- Huang Qunb. 1969CNnot in their usual nameChinese gymnast
- Li Juanb. 1981CNnot in their usual namevolleyball player
- Wang Juanb. 1982CNnot in their usual nameChinese judoka
- Gu Juanb. 1990CNnot in their usual nameSingaporean badminton 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)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)24 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 186 | #91,801 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 184 | #103,857 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 183 | #98,982 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 44 | #33,333 |
| 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 Kuen mean, and where does it come from?
- from a Germanic name with ue/uo spelling; likely from Kuono Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Kuen?
- In Malay /kuən/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Is Kuen a male or female name?
- Kuen is used for both men and women. National registers that list it by sex count it under both: United States (Census Bureau, 2020). We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Kuen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 12 thousand people named Kun in North Korea, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kuen?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 24 people named Kuen, about 1 in 720 thousand residents.
- How common is Kuen compared with other names?
- In North Korea, Kuen is the 449th most common given name of 2,746 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kuen?
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/kuenThe 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, “Kuen” — the 449th most common given name in North Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.