Kalev

given name · Estonian · Latin script

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

Kalev is a given name, most frequently recorded in Estonia. It appears chiefly in Estonian and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: The father of Kalevipoeg in the Estonian national epic.

rarermore common
  • EEEstonia1 in 727◐
  • ISIceland1 in 175K
  • FIFinland1 in 206K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈364 ●

across 8 countries

Sources
54 ●

1.9K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 175K ◐

Iceland

Meaning & origin●

The father of Kalevipoeg in the Estonian national epic.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Kalev is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
EE Estonia#1055,840724 rec.—2.2KKalev50
US United States—268319 rec.1 in 1.2M268Kalev54
SE Sweden—40△5 rec.1 in 255K40Kalev5
FI Finland—2718 rec.1 in 206K522Kalev8
GB United Kingdom—2417 rec.——Kalev9
CA Canada—2326 rec.—5Kalev17
BR Brazil—21—1 in 10M21——
IN India—122 rec.—5Kalev3
UA Ukraine—55 rec.——Kalev1
RU Russia—56 rec.——Kalev6
LV Latvia#7803780 rec.1 in 627K3Kalev5
PL Poland—2—1 in 19M10——

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Estonian6.6K70%
  • English6967%
  • Finnish6847%
  • Spanish3704%
  • Latvian2653%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Estonian6,58270%
English6967%
Finnish6847%
Spanish3704%
Latvian2653%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Kalev is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Bulgarian surname945 records spelled Kalev8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Bulgaria, Latvia, Russia

    Languages: Bulgarian, Serbian, Slovenian

    Also written Калев, Кълев

  • Spanish given name873 records spelled Kalev3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kalév

  • Russian surname156 records spelled Kalev6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Kazakhstan

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Калев, Калёв

  • Hebrew given name151 records spelled Kalev18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Israel, Ethiopia, Bulgaria

    Languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic

    Also written כלב, Caleb, Kaleb, קלב, ካሌብ

36 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.

Over time●

01020302000200520102015202021 · 2012

Show as table
Kalev in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 1999–2020
Yearrecords
199915
200015
200115
200214
200314
200414
200513
200614
200715
200816
200917
201018
201118
201221
201320
201419
201518
201618
201719
201818
201917
202016

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

19201940196019802000Kalev Raave, b. 1926Kalev Tammin, b. 1941Kalev Kallo, b. 1948Kalev Kukk, b. 1951Kalev Kotkas, b. 1960Kalev Stoicescu, b. 1965Kalev Kallemets, b. 1979Kalev Ermits, b. 1992Maik Kotsar, b. 1996

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●

Attested in 33 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Kalev
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — Ees- ja perekonnanimed (Population Register)—2.2K#74
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—2.2K#74
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—522#2,048
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020268#31,394
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—109#665
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—89#924
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—52#26,933
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—40#15,884
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—27—
EC EcuadorINEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024)—27—
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202221—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201421—

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • 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 2026-09-12 data build · 125 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Kalev?
We estimate roughly 364 people bear Kalev (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
In which country does Kalev have the most bearers?
Kalev is most frequently recorded in Estonia, where it is most often spelled kalev.
How common is Kalev compared with other names?
In Estonia, Kalev is the 105th most common given name of 14,570 given names recorded there.
Is Kalev a male or female name?
Kalev is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Kalev mean?
Recorded meaning: The father of Kalevipoeg in the Estonian national epic.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kalev

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Kalev” — the 105th most common given name in Estonia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Kalev parses inside a full name →