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 parents choose Kajetan
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 Holy Cross, 47% and 32% below average respectively.
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West Pomeranian
+40%1 in 327 babies
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Warmian-Masurian
+34%1 in 342 babies
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Lower Silesian
+33%1 in 344 babies
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Podlaskie
−47%1 in 866 babies
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Holy Cross
−32%1 in 676 babies
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Lesser Poland
−27%1 in 627 babies
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West Pomeranian+40% 258 born1 in 327 babies+40%
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Warmian-Masurian+34% 210 born1 in 342 babies+34%
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Lower Silesian+33% 457 born1 in 344 babies+33%
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Lubusz+31% 142 born1 in 350 babies+31%
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Pomeranian+28% 411 born1 in 358 babies+28%
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Silesian+14% 566 born1 in 402 babies+14%
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Greater Poland+4% 488 born1 in 441 babies+4%
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Lublin−4% 215 born1 in 478 babies−4%
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Masovian−9% 708 born1 in 500 babies−9%
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Łódź−9% 251 born1 in 505 babies−9%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian−14% 206 born1 in 531 babies−14%
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Opole−19% 82 born1 in 562 babies−19%
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Subcarpathian−20% 212 born1 in 569 babies−20%
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Lesser Poland−27% 362 born1 in 627 babies−27%
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Holy Cross−32% 82 born1 in 676 babies−32%
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Podlaskie−47% 76 born1 in 866 babies−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