Kurka

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Polish: chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius)

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈkɝkə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

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

rarermore common
  • UAUkraine≈1 in 55Kas Курка(inferred from the name graph)
  • RURussia≈1 in 537Kas Курка
  • CZCzechia1 in 11K

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 Kurka 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.

Czechia (measured from records)

949 people

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
86 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)

Czechia

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

KurkaLatin(measured from records)
КуркаCyrillic(measured from records)

Locally spelled Курка in UA Ukraine, RU Russia.

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)

nickname for someone thought to resemble a hen, from a diminutive of kura ‘hen’, ‘domestic fowl’.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

How Kurka is read(measured from records)

Kurka is one spelling over 5 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.

  • English48%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kurka in English.

  • German14%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kurka in German.

  • Polish12%

    chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius)

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

  • Ukrainian12%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kurka in Ukrainian.

  • Czech5.8%

    nickname for someone thought to resemble a hen, from a diminutive of kura ‘hen’, ‘domestic fowl’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)

Kurka 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 Kurka is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CZ Czechia#7909491 in 11K950Kurka65
UA Ukraine—≈800 est.≈1 in 55K—Курка17
PL Poland—5931 in 65K302Kurka45
US United States—4331 in 768K442Kurka26
RU Russia—≈260 est.≈1 in 537K—Курка86
FI Finland—1421 in 39K142—1
SK Slovakia—681 in 80K68Kurka13

949 people counted by MVČR — living population register 2017. 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: MVČR — living population register 2017; KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kurka is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Kůrka

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Brazil, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kůrka

  • Finnish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Finland

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Kůrka

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Kůrka, Kùrka

  • Croatian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States

    Also written Курка

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States

    Also written Kůrka

24 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)

Kurka 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.

  • In dsb, diminutive of kura (“chicken, hen”)

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

  • In Basque, ( VocBN → A ). "Gruñido del puerco cuando está satisfecho" A .

    as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia

  • In Latvian, apdzīvota vieta (skrajciems) Rušonas pagastā

    as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)

  • In Latvian, kāda ganu bērnu spēle ar sprunguļiem

    as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)

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)

1850190019502000Antonín Kurka, b. 1888Franz Kurka, b. 1909Robert Kurka, b. 1921Karel Kurka, b. 1922Odilo Kurka, b. 1931Miroslav Kurka, b. 1961Rainer Kurka, b. 1974Irene Kurka, b. 1974Lea Kurka, b. 1991Andrew Kurka, b. 1992

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)

FormalDear Kurka,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 30 sources across 16 countries.

Official registers attesting Kurka
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CZ CzechiaKdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end)—950#1,422
CZ CzechiaMVČR — living population register 2017—949#1,440
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020442#51,004
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010433#48,717
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000407#48,665
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026302—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—302#10,801
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026291—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—291#11,459
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—142#9,737
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—79—
SK SlovakiaJÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census)199568—

Reference works 6

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 Kurka come from?
nickname for someone thought to resemble a hen, from a diminutive of kura ‘hen’, ‘domestic fowl’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
How do you pronounce Kurka?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɝkə/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Kurka mean?
In Polish, chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius)
In which country does Kurka have the most bearers?
In Czechia, the national register counted about 949 people named Kurka, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kurka.
Where is Kurka most common?
Kurka is densest in Czechia, where the national register counts about 1 in 11 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Kurka?
In Czechia, the national register counted 949 people named Kurka, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
How common is Kurka compared with other names?
In Czechia, Kurka is the 790th most common surname of 114,573 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kurka?

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

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, “Kurka” — the 790th most common surname in Czechia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kurka parses inside a full name →