Kasper
A masculine name of Persian origin meaning "treasurer" or "richly adorned".
Name Census estimates that about 1,231 living Americans carry the first name Kasper. It is a predominantly male name (98.5% of registrations). The average person named Kasper today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kasper births was 2023 (96 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kasper. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Kasper with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Kasper is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 13 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
1.2K
~ 1 in 278,436 Americans
Peak year
2023
96 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2024 SSA rank
#1,750
Tracked since 1912
Census
Kasper in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 987 people with the first name Kasper, which placed it at #12,562 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#12,562
National first-name rank
People counted
987
987 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
74.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kasper
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kasper is White at 74.4%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (8.8%) and Hispanic (5.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Kasper described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Kasper at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White74.4% · 734
- Asian and Pacific Islander8.8% · 87
- Hispanic or Latino5.8% · 57
- Two or more races5.8% · 57
- Black or African American4.6% · 45
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 7
Gender
Gender distribution for Kasper
Kasper leans heavily male at 98.5% of total registrations, but 20 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Kasper as a male name
- Ranked #1,750 in 2024
- 94 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2024 (94 births)
Kasper as a female name
- Ranked #14,264 in 2023
- 6 female births in 2023
- Peak: 2021 (9 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kasper leans strongly male. 939 people counted with this name were male (95.2%), compared with 47 female bearers (4.8%).
Popularity
Kasper: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kasper from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 443 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Kasper by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Kasper during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kaspers live
The SSA's state-level files cover 11 states and territories. California, New York, Illinois recorded the most babies named Kasper, while Utah, North Carolina, Minnesota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 26 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Kasper
The name Kasper is derived from the Persian name Casper, which means "treasure bearer" or "bearer of treasures." It has its origins in the ancient Middle Persian language, and the name can be traced back to the Sasanian Empire of Persia, which ruled from the 3rd to the 7th century AD.
In the early Christian era, the name Casper became associated with one of the three biblical Magi or Wise Men who visited the baby Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. As a result, the name gained popularity among European Christians, particularly in German-speaking regions, where it evolved into the variant spelling Kasper.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Kasper appears in the 14th century German folk tale "The Story of the Seven Swabians," which features a character named Kasper. This tale is believed to have originated in the region of Swabia, in present-day southwestern Germany.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Kasper. One of the most famous was Caspar Melchior Balthazar, a 14th-century Benedictine monk and scholar from the German city of Trier. Another was Kasper Hauser, a German youth who lived in the early 19th century and claimed to have been raised in isolation, attracting significant public interest and speculation.
In the realm of arts and literature, Kasper is the name of a character in the classical German puppet theatre tradition known as the Kasperltheater. The name has also been used by several writers and artists, including the Norwegian playwright and poet Kasper Johansen (1836-1895) and the Danish painter Kasper Monrad (1858-1935).
Other notable individuals named Kasper include Kasper Schmeichel, a Danish professional footballer and goalkeeper who was born in 1986, and Kasper Bjørke, a Danish electronic music producer and DJ born in 1976.
People
Kasper + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kasper as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with K
Other first names starting with K with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Kasper: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kasper?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,231 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kasper going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 278,436 US residents.
Is Kasper a common name?
We classify Kasper as "Rare". It ranks above 91.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,324 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kasper most popular?
The single biggest year for Kasper was 2023, when 96 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kasper is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Kasper in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 987 people with the name Kasper, or 0.33 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,562 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Kasper in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Kasper?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kasper leans strongly male. 939 people counted with this name were male (95.2%), compared with 47 female bearers (4.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Kasper?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kasper is White at 74.4%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (8.8%) and Hispanic (5.8%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Kasper most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Kasper in the 2020 Census, accounting for 74.4% (734 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Kasper in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Kasper a male name?
Yes, 98.5% of people registered as Kasper in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Kasper still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kasper in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Kasper can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many Americans are named Kasper?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.