Keitha
Feminine · “wood”
Keitha adds a vowel to a surname, and the surname may be one of the very few Scottish names with a Pictish ancestor. Keith is a place in Banffshire, its name looks Brythonic rather than Gaelic, and the usual reading connects it to a word for a wood. If that is right, it is a fragment of a language that left almost nothing behind.
How old is the name Keitha?
Keitha first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Keitha alive today was born around 1962, making them about 63 years old. About 1,100 people named Keitha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keitha most popular?
Keitha peaked in 1969, reaching #1480 nationally. See the whole 1969 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A place in Banffshire with a possibly Pictish name to Keitha
The story of Keitha
The Picts left inscriptions nobody can read, carved stones, a king list and a great many place names, and no continuous text in their language at all. What can be reconstructed suggests a Brythonic language related to Welsh, with possibly something older underneath it, and the reconstruction is done largely from names on the map: a scatter of elements that recur in places where the Picts were and nowhere else. Keith is one of the candidates. That makes a very ordinary Scottish surname a fragment of one of the least recoverable languages in western Europe, which is a considerable amount of history for two syllables to carry without anybody noticing.
Meaningscholars disagree
wood
The place name is generally read as containing a Brythonic word for a wood or a forest, which would make it Pictish rather than Gaelic in origin. The derivation is not certain: Pictish is very thinly attested and almost everything said about it is inference from place names. The added vowel in this name marks it as feminine and contributes nothing to the meaning.
How the name formed
- A place in Banffshire with a possibly Pictish name
- A surname taken from the place
- Keith as a first name across the English-speaking world
- Keitha, feminised with an added vowel
Pronouncing Keitha
KEE-thuh
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the voiceless th of thin. The added vowel at the end is the whole of the feminising operation and does not change anything before it.
Nicknames for Keitha
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 197045 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1480reached in 1969
- Change vs 1998
- −16.7%5 in 2001, from 6
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.
Keithas among us
people named Keitha 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
Keitha 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 entirely familiar and needs no coaching.
- Thea is available inside it as a completely separate and fashionable name.
- It carries a genuine Scottish surname with an unusually deep history.
- It will be heard as Keith with a vowel, which is exactly what it is.
- The base name reads male to nearly everybody, and the vowel does all the work.
- It is firmly of the middle of the twentieth century.
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Keitha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Keithas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Keitha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Keitha in 2025?
- Keitha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Keitha with classmates?
- Keitha 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
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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