Keirra
Feminine · “dark”
Keirra doubles a consonant in a name that had nothing to double. The Irish original has a single r and a hard c, and the English spellings of it have multiplied to the point where the anglicized versions now outnumber the Irish one by a very wide margin in the American record. This is one of the later and more elaborate of them.
How old is the name Keirra?
Keirra first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Keirra alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 1,500 people named Keirra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keirra most popular?
Keirra peaked in 1994, reaching #2188 nationally. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From An Irish name meaning dark to Keirra
The story of Keirra
When an Irish name enters English by ear, the number of possible spellings is large and nothing constrains the choice. The Irish form here is short, uses a c that English would read as soft, and has a vowel combination that English handles unpredictably, so every family writing it down produces something slightly different. Within about two decades the American record shows half a dozen versions, none dominant, and the Irish original is a minority spelling in the country where most of the children are. That is not a failure of anybody's education. It is what happens when a name travels faster than its orthography, and the same thing happened to every popular Irish name that crossed the Atlantic.
Meaning
dark
The Irish name means dark or dark-haired, and the reading is settled. It is the feminine of a men's name carried by two significant early Irish saints. The doubled r and the ei spelling in this version contribute nothing to the meaning; they are decisions about appearance made by families working from the sound rather than from the Irish spelling.
How the name formed
- An Irish name meaning dark
- Anglicized by ear into several English spellings
- The anglicizations outnumbering the original
- Keirra as one of the later and more elaborate ones
Related forms: Ciara
Pronouncing Keirra
KEER-uh
Two syllables, stress on the first. The ei spells a long e, which is one of at least three things that letter pair does in English, and the doubled r changes nothing audible at all.
Nicknames for Keirra
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
- 1984
- Most girls named
- 200881 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2188reached in 1994
- Change vs 2023
- −22.2%7 in 2024, from 9
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.
Keirra in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ciara in Irish — related form
Keirras among us
people named Keirra 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
Keirra 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
- The sound is soft and easy and needs no coaching from anyone.
- It carries a genuine Irish name with a documented meaning.
- It is distinctive on paper while being entirely ordinary in speech.
- Half a dozen spellings are in circulation and yours is among the rarer ones.
- The doubled r is inaudible, so the spelling has to be given every time.
- The Irish original has a hard c, and this spelling has moved some distance from it.
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What they receive
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Keirra
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Keirras are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Keirra are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Keirra in 2025?
- Keirra is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Keirra with classmates?
- Keirra will almost certainly be the only one in school.
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The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Keirra? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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