Kaspen is likely a modern form related to Casper, from Persian roots meaning "treasurer" or "keeper of treasure."
Kaspen is a creative variant of the ancient name Caspar — or Kaspar, Casper, Gaspar — one of the most storied names in the Western tradition. The three Magi of Christian legend, whose names are not given in the Gospels, were assigned by later tradition as Melchior, Balthasar, and Gaspar, the last of whom came to be associated with the youngest of the three wise men, said to have brought frankincense to the infant Jesus. The name itself is thought to derive from the Persian Jaspar or Gathaspar, possibly meaning 'treasurer' or 'master of the treasure,' a fitting name for one of the gift-bearing kings.
Across European languages the name took on distinct local flavors: Gaspard in French, Gaspare in Italian, Kaspar in German and Dutch, Caspar in English. The German Kaspar gave the world Kaspar Hauser, the mysterious nineteenth-century foundling whose disputed origin story became one of the great enigmas of European Romanticism, inspiring novels, plays, and Werner Herzog's celebrated 1974 film. This association lends the name a certain romantic strangeness, a quality of arriving from elsewhere, of unknown depths.
The spelling Kaspen softens the ending, giving it a more contemporary Nordic feel — it echoes names like Aspen and Soren while keeping the deep historical resonance of Caspar intact. This updated spelling began appearing in the early 2000s as parents sought alternatives to the more familiar Casper, partly freed from its association with the cartoon ghost. Kaspen strikes a balance between ancient and fresh, weighty and wearable.