Keith
Feminine
Keith is given to boys far more often — 437,907 boys against 2,216 girls since 1880. See Keith as a boy name
Scotland exported its territorial surnames as first names and England, on the whole, did not. Keith, Douglas, Graham, Ross, Lindsay and Bruce all became ordinary given names on both sides of the Atlantic. The equivalent English names — the villages and estates that produced English gentry surnames — mostly stayed surnames and are there still.
How old is the name Keith?
Keith first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Keith alive today was born around 1969, making them about 56 years old. About 1,800 people named Keith are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keith most popular?
Keith peaked in 1968, reaching #1279 nationally. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Keith
Why Scotland and not England is a question with a fairly good answer. Scottish surnames of this kind carry clan and territorial identity in a way English ones do not, and Scots abroad — in Ulster, in the American colonies, in the empire — used them to mark descent when there was nothing else to mark it with. Giving a Scottish surname as a first name kept a mother's family, or a grandmother's, visible in a child's name. English families had the same option and used it far less. The result is that a small group of Scottish place names has been in general circulation as first names for two centuries, while their English counterparts still sound like the names of estates.
Meaning
from a place in the northeast of Scotland
The name is a territorial one: a family took it from land they held, rather than the land being named for them. The place name itself is older than the family and comes from a language that has left very little else behind.
Pronouncing Keith
KEETH
One syllable ending in the voiceless th, the sound in thin rather than the one in this. Very few English first names end that way, which is part of what makes it distinctive.
Nicknames for Keith
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 196762 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1279reached in 1968
- Change vs 2003
- 0.0%8 in 2007, 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.
Keiths among us
people named Keith 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
Keith 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, entirely unambiguous, and never spelled twice.
- The final consonant is rare in names, which gives it an unusual shape.
- It has been in wide use long enough to be familiar everywhere.
- Its peak generation is recent enough to date the name clearly to most ears.
- There is no natural short form, so the full name does all the work.
- The record holds girls as well, and the girl is much the smaller side.
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Keith
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Keiths are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Keith are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Keith in 2025?
- Keith is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Keith with classmates?
- Keith will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Keith? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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