Caspian

Origin and meaning of Caspian

Caspian was not invented by C. S. Lewis: he took it from the Caspian Sea, named for the city of Qazvin, itself named for the ancient Cas people.

• Toponymic

  From the Caspian Sea → the city of Qazvin → the Cas, a tribe of antiquity.

Crediting Lewis is a half-truth worth undoing. Prince Caspian appears in 1950, in the second of the Chronicles of Narnia, and that is how the name reached the English-speaking world. But Lewis did not coin the word: he took a sea off the map, the way one might name a child Nile or Siena.

And the sea was already named after people. The chain runs the opposite way to what it looks like: there was an ancient people, the Cas; from them comes the name of the city of Qazvin, in northern Iran; and from the city comes the name of the sea. Caspian is, underneath, the demonym of a people gone for millennia.

That puts the name in a small and interesting category: those that come from a place, not from a quality or a deity. It does not mean “strong” or “gift of God”. It points at a spot on the map and at whoever lived there.

It is recent in ordinary use and still uncommon: in 2025 it ranked 401st in England and Wales and 491st in the United States.

Which surnames go well with Caspian?

We calculate how Caspian sounds next to the 6 most common surnames in the English-speaking world. The score runs from 0 to 100 and weighs length contrast, the cadence of the pair and cacophony at the join — a row only gets a comment when there is something specific to point out.

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Numerology of the name Caspian

Every letter in Caspian carries a value. Added up, they reveal three numbers describing talents, motivations and the impression the name makes.

Numerology is a symbolic, cultural reading: fun and inspiration, not science.

Sweet nicknames for Caspian

Affectionate ways to call Caspian every day.