Kwesi
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Kwesi is a given name, most frequently recorded in Ghana. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Conquering strength.
- GHGhana1 in 4.9K◐
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 191K
- USUnited States1 in 317K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈1.5K ●
- Sources
- 218 ●
- 1 in 2.7K ◐
across 8 countries
13K records
Official registry-verified
Guyana
Meaning & origin●
Conquering strength
Sources 1
- The book of African names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | #118 | 3,498 | 2.5K rec. | — | listed | Kwesi | 90 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1,082 | 524 rec. | — | — | Kwesi | 76 |
| US United States | — | 1,050 | 8.7K rec. | 1 in 317K | 1.1K | Kwesi | 218 |
| ES Spain | — | 317 | 323 rec. | — | 8 | Kwesi | 18 |
| GY Guyana | #242 | 278 | 253 rec. | 1 in 2.7K | 278 | Kwesi | 4 |
| CA Canada | — | 147 | 137 rec. | — | 1 | Kwesi | 47 |
| DE Germany | — | 121 | 108 rec. | — | 2 | Kwesi | 34 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 111 | 125 rec. | — | — | Kwesi | 14 |
| IT Italy | — | 100 | 114 rec. | — | — | Kwesi | 18 |
| AU Australia | — | 97 | 92 rec. | — | — | Kwesi | 15 |
| SE Sweden | — | 57△ | 1 rec. | 1 in 179K | 57 | — | 2 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 48 | 53 rec. | 1 in 360K | 48 | Kwesi | 17 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English13K75%
- Swahili1.2K7%
- Spanish7084%
- 3722%
- French2171%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 13,242 | 75% |
| Swahili | 1,176 | 7% |
| Spanish | 708 | 4% |
| 372 | 2% | |
| French | 217 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1971 | 13 |
| 1972 | 25 |
| 1973 | 28 |
| 1974 | 26 |
| 1975 | 22 |
| 1976 | 18 |
| 1977 | 31 |
| 1978 | 22 |
| 1979 | 11 |
| 1980 | 20 |
| 1981 | 12 |
| 1982 | 11 |
| 1983 | 15 |
| 1984 | 12 |
| 1985 | 9 |
| 1986 | 10 |
| 1987 | 5 |
| 1988 | 8 |
| 1989 | 16 |
| 1990 | 21 |
| 1991 | 16 |
| 1992 | 20 |
| 1993 | 31 |
| 1994 | 28 |
| 1995 | 15 |
| 1996 | 13 |
| 1997 | 27 |
| 1998 | 13 |
| 1999 | 15 |
| 2000 | 30 |
| 2001 | 15 |
| 2002 | 16 |
| 2003 | 26 |
| 2004 | 14 |
| 2005 | 18 |
| 2006 | 9 |
| 2007 | 12 |
| 2008 | 16 |
| 2009 | 16 |
| 2010 | 9 |
| 2011 | 9 |
| 2012 | 9 |
| 2014 | 8 |
| 2015 | 10 |
| 2016 | 7 |
| 2017 | 7 |
| 2018 | 12 |
| 2019 | 9 |
| 2020 | 8 |
| 2021 | 13 |
| 2022 | 7 |
| 2023 | 7 |
| 2024 | 11 |
| 2025 | 7 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 54 years between 1971–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Kwesi Dicksonb. 1929GHAcademic, priest, writer and 7th President of the Methodist Church of Ghana
- Kwesi Botchweyb. 1942GHGhanaian academic, lawyer and politician
- Kwesi Amissah-Arthurb. 1951GHformer Vice President of Ghana (1951-2018)
- Linton Kwesi Johnsonb. 1952JMJamaican dub poet
- Kwesi Ahoomey-Zunub. 1958TGTogolese politician
- James Kwesi Appiahb. 1960GHEx Ghanaian footballer and the head coach of the black stars of Ghana
- Kwesi Appiahb. 1990GBassociation football player (born 1990)
- Vic Mensab. 1993USnot in their usual nameAmerican rapper and singer
- Benjamin Henrichsb. 1997DEnot in their usual nameGerman association football player (born 1997)
- Kwesi Boakyeb. 1998USAmerican actor
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 26 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.1K | #11,865 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 278 | #328 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 57 | #12,474 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 48 | #6,868 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 45 | #9,074 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1993 | 31 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1977 | 31 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2000 | 30 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1994 | 28 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1973 | 28 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1997 | 27 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2003 | 26 | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 · 81 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Kwesi?
- We estimate roughly 1.5 thousand people bear Kwesi (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
- In which country does Kwesi have the most bearers?
- Kwesi is most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is most often spelled kwesi.
- Where is Kwesi most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kwesi is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 2.7 thousand people — even though Ghana holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Kwesi compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Kwesi is the 118th most common given name of 14,190 given names recorded there.
- Is Kwesi a male or female name?
- Kwesi 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 Kwesi mean?
- Recorded meaning: Conquering strength
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kwesiThe 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
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, “Kwesi” — the 118th most common given name in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.