Kerstin
Predominantly a woman's name here, and a genuinely uncommon sight: most Poles will never meet a Kerstin. A Scandinavian and German form with a Christian root, from the sense "follower of Christ".
Kerstin Pronunciation
Kerstin is pronounced KERS-teen (/ˈkɛrstin/).
What Kerstin means
Where Kerstin comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Kerstin grew up in Germanic-speaking lands, a Scandinavian and German form shortened from Christina. The name closer to Polish readers is Krystyna, and Kerstin is its northern, clipped version. Trace it back and you reach the Latin christianus, and behind that the Greek name for Christ. The meaning is direct: a Christian, a follower of Christ.
For centuries the name belonged mostly to Sweden and northern Germany. Kerstin Hesselgren entered the Swedish Riksdag in 1922, among its first women members. The novelist Kerstin Ekman, born 1933, holds a chair in the Swedish Academy, though she stopped taking part in its work in 1989 over a free-speech dispute. Both began with a name that started as a statement of faith.
In a Polish class register today Kerstin looks foreign, a visitor from the north. It has no Polish diminutive. The short Polish sense holds steady: chrześcijanka, wyznawczyni Chrystusa.
How many people are named Kerstin
1 in 239828 women in Poland is named Kerstin. 96 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3542 among female names.
Kerstin as a middle name
Kerstin is a first name for 96 women in Poland and a middle name for another 31, a 76/24 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 1264th, between Katharine (31) and Komang (31).
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#1262 Justina31
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#1263 Katharine31
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#1264 Kerstin31
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#1265 Komang31
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#1266 Lejla31