Karsten

Name: Karsten: recorded bearers, distribution and rank
Creator: Mondonomo
Published: 2026-10-13
License: https://mondonomo.ai/tos#rights

given name · Latin script

Meaning: from Christianus; variant of Kirsten/Kersten, included to show differing vowel realization in the surname cluster (Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus)

A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 30 countries · latest register: SSB PxWebApi, 2025

/ˈkaːstn̩/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Karsten is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.

DKDenmark1 in 685(measured from records)
DEGermany≈1 in 1K
NONorway1 in 3.2K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). 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.

: Germany (inferred from the name graph)
Record sources: 257 (measured from records)
: 1 in 685 (inferred from the name graph)

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

How to pronounce Karsten

German:/ˈkaːstn̩/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary

Meaning & origin

from Christianus; variant of Kirsten/Kersten, included to show differing vowel realization in the surname cluster.

Cited for this meaning 1

Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Karsten, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world

Karsten 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 Karsten is recorded, by country
Country					Most common spelling	Sources
DE Germany	#202	≈82,000 est.	≈1 in 1K	listed	Karsten	244
DK Denmark	—	8,566	1 in 685	8.6K	Karsten	8
US United States	—	3,349	1 in 99K	3.1K	Karsten	257
NO Norway	—	1,697	1 in 3.2K	5.8K	Karsten	37
CH Switzerland	—	≈1,200 est.	≈1 in 7.8K	33	Karsten	54
NL Netherlands	—	1,099	1 in 16K	1.5K	Karsten	54

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; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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

Karsten is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

Danish given name10 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Norway, Sweden
Languages: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
Also written Kaarsten, Kärsten, Kårsten
Spanish given name4 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Spain, Philippines
Languages: Spanish, Portuguese
Also written Kärsten
a separate name2 spellings in the group
Also written Kärsten
French given name3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in France, United States, Switzerland, Netherlands
Also written Kärsten
Finnish given name4 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Estonia, United States, Sweden, Norway
Languages: Finnish, Estonian
Also written Kärsten
Hindi given name3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Norway
Languages: Hindi, Urdu
Also written Karstén
a separate given name3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in Norway, United States, Canada, United Kingdom
Also written Kårsten, Kärsten

51 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

Karsten 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 German, von Carsten/Christian; C/K-Variation. Bearer count: 2571.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Patronymische Sippenform zu Karsten/Carsten; die Karte zeigt a/ä/e-Vokalvariation. Belege: 1985.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, ) Carsten: männl. Vom., nie derdeutsche Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In French, Variante germanique de Christian, du latin Christianus, « chrétien ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In German, Patronym aus Christian; zeigt C/K-Variation im Anlaut und r-Metathese. Bearer count: 2571.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

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

Karsten Kiilerichb. 1955DKDanish animator and film director (born 1955)
Karsten Braaschb. 1967DEGerman tennis player
Karsten Warholmb. 1996NONorwegian athletics competitor

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

InformalHallo Karsten,Hi Karsten, (English)

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

68 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 30 countries.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Karsten mean, and where does it come from?: from Christianus; variant of Kirsten/Kersten, included to show differing vowel realization in the surname cluster. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus.
What are other forms of the name Karsten?: In the etymology graph, Christian, Cristian and Kristen are forms of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Karsten?: In German /ˈkaːstn̩/ (Wiktionary).
Is Karsten a male or female name?: Karsten is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: Denmark (Danmarks Statistik), Norway (SSB), United States (Census Bureau, 2020) and Netherlands (Meertens NVB), among others.
Which countries have the most people named Karsten?: Mondonomo estimates about 82 thousand people named Karsten in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled karsten. After it come Denmark, United States, Norway and Switzerland; the country table on this page ranks them.
Where is Karsten most common?: Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Karsten is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 685 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Karsten?: In Denmark, the national register counted 8,566 people named Karsten, about 1 in 685 residents.
How common is Karsten compared with other names?: In Germany, Karsten is the 202nd most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Karsten?

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/karsten

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 2026-10-13 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, “Karsten” — the 202nd most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Karsten parses inside a full name →