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Updated June 9, 2019

Family name origins & meanings

  • Dutch and North German : from a vernacular personal name, a variant of Karsten.
  • German : from Middle High German kasten ‘chest’, ‘coffer’ or kornkasten ‘grain bin’, hence a metonymic occupational name for the manager of a granary, and later for the treasurer of an estate or guild. See also Kastner.
  • South German (Bavaria) : topographic name from the dialect word Kasten ‘crag’, ‘steep rock’.
  • Swedish (Kastén) : from an unexplained first element, perhaps part of a place name, + the adjectival suffix -én, a derivative of Latin -enius.

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