Keigan
Masculine · “Irish Aodhagan”
Keigan is given to both — 931 boys and 155 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Irish stacks its diminutives. Aodh is a name; Aodhan is little Aodh; Aodhagan is little little Aodh, and it is from that doubled form that Keegan comes, through the surname Mac Aodhagain. The name is three layers of affection applied to a fire god, flattened into six English letters.
How old is the name Keigan?
Keigan first appears in US birth records in 1987 — 38 years ago. The typical Keigan alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 900 people named Keigan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keigan most popular?
Keigan peaked in 2008, reaching #2062 nationally. Today it ranks #8243, 6,181 places below that high. See the whole 2008 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aodh to Keigan
The story of Keigan
Diminutive stacking is normal in Irish and unusual in English. The suffixes -an and -in each make a smaller or more affectionate form, and they can be applied to a form that already carries one, which is how Aodh gives Aodhan and then Aodhagan. Spanish does the same thing with -ito and -illo, giving chico, chiquito and chiquitito, and Italian with -ino and -etto. English has almost lost the ability: we can add -y or -ie to a clipped name and that is nearly the end of it, and stacking is impossible. So the layers in an Irish name are invisible in the English form, and Keegan looks like a simple two-syllable name rather than a name plus two suffixes. The surname was borne by a family of hereditary lawyers in medieval Ireland, and the modern given name is an American revival of the surname.
Meaning
Irish Aodhagan, a double diminutive of Aodh, fire
From Irish Mac Aodhagain, son of Aodhagan, which is Aodh with two diminutive suffixes stacked. Aodh was a pre-Christian Irish deity associated with fire and the sun, and gives Aidan, Hugh and several surnames. Keigan is a modern respelling using ei for the long vowel; Keegan is standard. It peaks in the American data in 2008.
How the name formed
- Aodh
- Aodhagan
- Keegan
- Keigan
Related forms: Mac Aodhagain · Keegan
Pronouncing Keigan
KEE-gun
Two syllables, stress on the first. The ei digraph is ambiguous in English and can be read as ee or ay, so Keigan invites a KAY-gun reading that Keegan blocks.
Nicknames for Keigan
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
- 1987
- Most boys named
- 200867 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2062reached in 2008
- Change vs 2024
- +12.5%9 in 2025, from 8
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.
Keigan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mac Aodhagain in Irish — related form
- Keegan in English — spelling variant
Keigans among us
people named Keigan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 189,786 born in 2025 was named Keigan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Fredrich test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Keigan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Fredrich climbed just as high around 1936, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Fredrich's path sketches the road Keigan is walking now.
Keigan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Keigan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Keigan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Irish etymology is settled and reaches back to a pre-Christian deity.
- Keeg works as a short form.
- It fits the current fashion for Irish surnames as boys' names.
- Keegan is the standard spelling by a wide margin.
- The ei digraph permits two readings.
- The Irish original is unrecoverable from the English form.
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Keigan
Masculine · #8243 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Keigans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Keigan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Keigan in 2025?
- Keigan ranks #8243 among US boy names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Keigan?
- About 1 in every 189,786 US boys born in 2025 was named Keigan — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Keigan with classmates?
- Keigan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Keigan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Danial#8243 · Ogden#8243 · Aaren#8243 · Trinity#8243 · Kourtney#8243 · Maury#8243 · Lindon#8243 · Elbert#8243
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Keigan? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Keigan and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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