Kajetan
A Greek name pointing back to Gaeta, the Italian port the ancients called Caieta: it marks someone from there. Uncommon in Poland today, ranked around 284th and given to a few fewer boys each year since its peak in the 2010s.
Kajetan Pronunciation
Kajetan is pronounced kah-YE-tahn (/kaˈjɛtan/).
What Kajetan means
Where Kajetan comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Kajetan reached Polish from the Latin Caietanus, a word that once did plain work: it marked where a person came from. That place was Caieta, the harbor town on the Tyrrhenian coast now called Gaeta. The short meaning stays faithful to that address, inhabitant of Caieta, someone pochodzący z Gaety. Before it belonged to any saint, the name told strangers your hometown.
A man from that coast gave it a second life. Kajetan of Thiene lived from 1480 to 1547. He founded the Theatines. Poland fixed his feast on 7 August, and it remains the busiest of the Kajetan name-days, ahead of the dates in October and January.
In Poland the name later found poets and gentry. Kajetan Koźmian, born 1771 and died 1856, wrote in the classical manner and left long memoirs of his age. Read a school register today and a Kajetan may sit near a Kacper, the letter K holding its old ground. The name still points back to Gaeta, and to the word for a person who came from there.
When Kajetan celebrates name day
Kajetan appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 7 August.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
How many people are named Kajetan
1 in 1147 men in Poland is named Kajetan. 18,605 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #284 among male names.
Kajetan's popularity over time
444 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #120 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2000.
Where Kajetan is most popular
Kajetan is most popular in West Pomeranian, 40% above the national average (258 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Warmian-Masurian (+34%) and Lower Silesian (+33%). It is least common in Podlaskie and Świętokrzyskie, 47% and 32% below average respectively.
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West Pomeranian258 boys born+40%
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Warmian-Masurian210 boys born+34%
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Lower Silesian457 boys born+33%
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Lubusz142 boys born+31%
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Pomeranian411 boys born+28%
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Silesian566 boys born+14%
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Greater Poland488 boys born+4%
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Lublin215 boys born−4%
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Masovian708 boys born−9%
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Łódź251 boys born−9%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian206 boys born−14%
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Opole82 boys born−19%
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Subcarpathian212 boys born−20%
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Lesser Poland362 boys born−27%
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Świętokrzyskie82 boys born−32%
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Podlaskie76 boys born−47%
Kajetan as a middle name
Kajetan is a first name for 18,605 men in Poland and a middle name for another 5,396, a 78/22 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 126th, between Ksawery (5,466) and Fabian (5,361).
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#124 Remigiusz5,954
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#125 Ksawery5,466
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#126 Kajetan5,396
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#127 Fabian5,361
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#128 Ernest5,284