Khen

given name · English · Latin script

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

Khen is a given name, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and Vietnamese, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: to praise, to compliment, to commend.

rarermore common
  • NLNetherlands1 in 953
  • BEBelgium1 in 1.4K
  • USUnited States1 in 4.8K

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

≈92K

across 11 countries

4

recorded for this name

Sources
220

114K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 953

Netherlands

Spellings & scripts

KoenLatin · Dutch42K records
เก่งThai · Thai3K records
고언Hangul · Korean11 records
קאןHebrew · Yiddish0 records

Locally spelled Koen in NL Netherlands, BE Belgium, NO Norway and 10 more, Keng in US United States, MY Malaysia, AU Australia and 5 more, Gain in IN India and เก่ง in TH Thailand.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin

to praise, to compliment, to commend

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 Khen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States69,07344K rec.1 in 4.8K69KKenG220
NL Netherlands#20018,12915K rec.1 in 95318KKoen142
MY Malaysia#50112,54513K rec.KenG70
BE Belgium#13011,2429.1K rec.74Koen132
TH Thailand8,5726.2K rec.#845,127เก่ง124
PH Philippines3,7261.5K rec.Khen45
AU Australia3,3905.8K rec.4KenG89
CA Canada1,7881.3K rec.10Koen42
SG Singapore#3631,6942.2K rec.KenG85
GB United Kingdom1,5892.3K rec.9KenG56
NO Norway1,52799 rec.1 in 3.6K3.7KKoen13
SE Sweden1,44184 rec.1 in 7.1K1.4KKoen12

Roughly 69K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 4.8K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

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

Languages

  • English5K37%
  • Vietnamese1.8K13%
  • Spanish1.7K13%
  • Malay9307%
  • Hindi8246%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English4,97337%
Vietnamese1,82113%
Spanish1,74113%
Malay9307%
Hindi8246%

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

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

  • Hindi given name1.6K records spelled Khen5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Philippines, United States, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Khęņ, Kheṅ, Khên

  • Khmer given name943 records spelled Khen2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia

    Also written Khén

  • French given name425 records spelled Khen2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Philippines, Congo - Kinshasa, United States

    Also written Khên

  • Korean given name368 records spelled Khen101 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in South Korea, United States, Russia, Kazakhstan

    Languages: Korean, Russian, English

    Also written Hyung, 형주, 형우, 형, Хен

  • a separate given name366 records spelled Khen10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, Philippines

    Also written Khễn, Khẹn, Khển, Khèn, Khén

  • a separate given name343 records spelled Khen4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States

    Also written Khēn, Kheṅ, Khén

40 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

Khen 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 Lao, |. v. discipline. 2. v: perfect. 3. v.: beat, forge. - «Bo (Thai)' v. gnash the teeth in E * anger — WJ v. forge a knife. ; (2X. /khé:ny n. arm-shield, buckler. leute 2 (2M. (Thai) n. masked actor in Thai drama. VP

    as a wordLao-English Dictionary

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

500100015002000Llywarch Hen, b. 534Harald III of Denmark, b. 1041Józef Hen, b. 1923Rachel Sade Hen, b. 1927Yona Chen, b. 1941Yitzhak Hen, b. 1963Ronen Chen, b. 1965Reshef Hen, b. 1968Tal Hen, b. 1979
  • Llywarch Henb. 534GBnot in their usual namePrince of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged
  • Harald III of Denmarkb. 1041DKnot in their usual name11th-century King of Denmark
  • Józef Henb. 1923PLnot in their usual namePolish writer, screenwriter and dramaturge
  • Rachel Sade Henb. 1927ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli poet
  • Yona Chenb. 1941ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli scientist
  • Yitzhak Henb. 1963ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli historian
  • Ronen Chenb. 1965ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli fashion designer
  • Reshef Henb. 1968ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli politician
  • Tal Henb. 1979ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli footballer

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 24 sources across 13 countries.

Official registers attesting Khen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020238#24,188
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020211#93,282
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls198#720
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010186#97,671
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls177#19,324
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000170#98,770
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020162#24,188
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)20#26,886
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)20#28,467
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)18#20,202
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)15#29,434
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)12#15,999

Reference works 2

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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 · 96 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Khen?
We estimate roughly 92 thousand people bear Khen (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.
In which country does Khen have the most bearers?
We estimate about 69 thousand people bear Khen in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled KenG.
Where is Khen most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Khen is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 953 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is Khen compared with other names?
In Belgium, Khen is the 130th most common given name of 58,504 given names recorded there.
Is Khen a male or female name?
Khen 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 Khen mean?
Recorded meaning: to praise, to compliment, to commend
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/khen

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, “Khen” — the 130th most common given name in Belgium. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Khen parses inside a full name →