Westen
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Dutch: the West
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈwɛstən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Westen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 49K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 950K
- GAGabon≈1 in 43K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 186 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 43K (inferred from the name graph)
≈510 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Gabon, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname from a dwelling/landscape feature; bearers 13.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Westen is read(measured from records)
Westen is one spelling over 3 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.
- English56%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Westen in English.
- Dutch15%
the West
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German11%
Toponymic surname from a dwelling/landscape feature; bearers 13.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
west
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Toponymischer Familienname zu einem West-Toponym bzw. Wohnplatz im Westen; Varianten im Beleg: van West, Westermeyger, (vom/von) Westernhagen, Westram, zcur Westenn, Thorwest, Westhusen, Westerkamp, Westerfelt, Westerhus, Westhoff, Westerhausen, Westerberg(k), (Th/D)erwesten, Westerholz, Westenberg(s), Westenholtz, Westendorf, Weste, Westermeier.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Wohnstättenname; univerbierte Präposition + Westen; morphologisch: -westen. Belegt 35.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
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)
Westen 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 158K | — | Westen | 67 |
| NL Netherlands | 356 | 1 in 49K | 356 | Westen | 51 |
| US United States | 350 | 1 in 950K | 1.1K | Westen | 186 |
| KE Kenya | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 425K | — | Westen | 1 |
| DK Denmark | 120 | 1 in 49K | 120 | — | 1 |
| FI Finland | 55 | 1 in 101K | 55 | — | 2 |
| GA Gabon | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 43K | 1 | — | — |
| NO Norway | 40 | 1 in 137K | 40 | — | 3 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative). 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)
Westen is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In ang, wasteland, desert, wilderness
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)
- Georg Westenb. 1851DEGerman architect
- Hans Westenb. 1891DEGerman politician (1891-1947)
- Peter Westenb. 1943USAmerican lawyer and legal scholar
- Monica Westénb. 1966SESwedish heptathlete and hurdler
- Johan Westenb. 1966badminton 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 24 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 395 | #49,869 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 380 | #57,805 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 356 | #5,692 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 350 | #58,042 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 120 | #4,562 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 40 | #29,910 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 31 | #34,361 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 are other forms of the name Westen?
- In the etymology graph, Weest is a form of the same name in other languages.
- Where does the name Westen come from?
- Toponymic surname from a dwelling/landscape feature; bearers 13. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- How do you pronounce Westen?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwɛstən/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Westen mean?
- In Dutch, the West
- In which country does Westen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 508 people named Westen in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled westen.
- How common is the name Westen?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 356 people named Westen in 2007, about 1 in 49 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Westen?
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/westenThe 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, “Westen”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.