Kennon
Masculine · “descendant of Coinneagan”
Kennon is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,796 boys against 30 girls since 1880.
Kennon is an Irish surname that reached American birth certificates by the ordinary southern route: a mother's family name given to a son. Its peak is 1964, later than most of the surname-first-names of its type, and it has stayed rare and recognizably southern ever since. Behind it is a Gaelic personal name and the usual difficulty of anglicized spellings.
How old is the name Kennon?
Kennon first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Kennon alive today was born around 1983, making them about 42 years old. About 1,500 people named Kennon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kennon most popular?
Kennon peaked in 1964, reaching #1435 nationally. Today it ranks #5861, 4,426 places below that high. See the whole 1964 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Coinneach to Kennon
The story of Kennon
Irish and Scottish surnames arrived in America in enormous numbers through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their spellings were fixed by whoever held the pen. Kennon appears in Virginia records from the seventeenth century — the Kennon family of Henrico County were early planters — and became a southern surname of some standing. The practice of giving a son his mother's maiden name as a first name was strongest in the American South and lasted longer there than anywhere else, which is why Kennon's peak as a given name comes as late as the 1960s while comparable names peaked forty years earlier.
Meaningscholars disagree
descendant of Coinneagan; possibly 'fair-born'
Kennon is generally taken as an anglicization of the Irish O Coinneagain, from a diminutive of a personal name related to Coinneach, 'handsome, comely' — the same name that gives Kenneth. A separate route runs through Mac Fhionghain, the Scottish MacKinnon, from Fionghuine, 'fair-born'. Anglicized Gaelic surnames were written down by clerks with no Irish, so several distinct originals routinely collapsed onto one English spelling, and Kennon is one of those cases.
How the name formed
- Coinneach
- O Coinneagain
- Kennon
Related forms: O Coinneagain · MacKinnon · Kennan
Pronouncing Kennon
KEN-un
Two syllables, stress on the first, with the ending reduced to a schwa. Identical to Kennan and very close to Kenyon, which is a separate Welsh surname.
Nicknames for Kennon
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
- 1917
- Most boys named
- 200433 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1435reached in 1964
- Change vs 2023
- +150.0%15 in 2025, 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.
Kennon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- O Coinneagain in Irish — related form
- MacKinnon in Scottish — related form
- Kennan in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Louisiana.
Kennons among us
people named Kennon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 113,872 born in 2025 was named Kennon
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 Stevens test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kennon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Stevens climbed just as high around 1949, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stevens's path sketches the road Kennon is walking now.
Kennon 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
Kennon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kennon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Ken and Kenny are ready-made short forms with a long history.
- The pronunciation is obvious on sight to any English reader.
- It has a documented American history going back to colonial Virginia.
- Kennon, Kennan and Kenyon are three separate names that sound nearly identical.
- The Gaelic original cannot be recovered with certainty from the English spelling.
- It will often be assumed to be a surname rather than a first name.
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Kennon
Masculine · #5861 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kennons 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 Kennon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kennon in 2025?
- Kennon ranks #5861 among US boy names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kennon?
- About 1 in every 113,872 US boys born in 2025 was named Kennon — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kennon with classmates?
- Kennon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kennon
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eber#5861 · Wilton#5861 · Ruby#5861 · Stacy#5861 · Garner#5861 · Caldwell#5861 · Severin#5861 · Newton#5861
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kennon? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kennon and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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