Kee
Masculine
Kee is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,406 boys against 10 girls since 1880.
Kee is three letters that could have arrived from several directions and left no record of which. It is a common romanisation of a Chinese and Korean surname, it is a plausible clipping of a dozen longer names, and it is the kind of short form that nineteenth-century American registers recorded without comment. The letters carry almost no information.
How old is the name Kee?
Kee first appears in US birth records in 1910 — 115 years ago. The typical Kee alive today was born around 1941, making them about 84 years old. About 600 people named Kee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kee most popular?
Kee peaked in 1933, reaching #1028 nationally. See the whole 1933 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A romanised Chinese and Korean surname to Kee
Our story of Kee
Romanised Chinese surnames are a genuine difficulty for record-keeping. Chinese has a small number of surnames shared by very large numbers of people, several romanisation systems that give different spellings for the same name, and several distinct characters that share a sound. The result is that a romanised surname on an American document may correspond to any of several Chinese families with different characters, different meanings and no relation to each other. The same problem applies to Korean, with its own romanisation history. So a short name of this shape in an American record is not merely untraceable in the ordinary way; it may be untraceable in principle, because the information needed to identify it was discarded at the moment it was written down.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source can be established. As a romanised surname it corresponds to more than one Chinese character with more than one meaning, which is a general problem with romanised Chinese: the sound is shared by many characters. As a clipping it takes whichever parent you assign it. Three letters cannot distinguish these, and no confident reading should be offered.
How the name formed
- A romanised Chinese and Korean surname
- Also a plausible clipping of a dozen longer names
- Recorded in American registers without comment
- Kee in use for both sexes and rare on both
Pronouncing Kee
KEE
One syllable, said exactly as the English word for what opens a lock. There is nothing to teach anybody, and the romanised Chinese and Korean surnames are said close enough to this that the difference rarely comes up.
Nicknames for Kee
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1910
- Most boys named
- 192444 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1028reached in 1933
- Change vs 2010
- +20.0%6 in 2016, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Kees among us
people named Kee are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Kee sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- One syllable, no ambiguity, and nothing at all to explain.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- It pairs cleanly with any longer middle name.
- It is identical in sound to an ordinary English noun.
- Very short names cause trouble with forms and systems that expect more.
- There is no meaning or origin to give, and there may not be one to find.
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What they receive
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Kee
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Kees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Kee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kee in 2025?
- Kee is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Kee with classmates?
- Kee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Kenneth#294 · Kevin#221 · Kyle#508 · Keith#800 · Karl#1585 · Kaleb#295 · Kurt#2258 · Kelly#1867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kee? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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