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.