Keri
Feminine · “of the dark-haired people”
Keri is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 32,061 girls against 325 boys since 1880.
Keri is County Kerry with the letters pared back as far as they will go. Five letters become four, and what survives is a sound with a documented Irish origin and no visible trace of it.
How old is the name Keri?
Keri first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Keri alive today was born around 1978, making them about 47 years old. About 30,500 people named Keri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Keri most popular?
Keri peaked in 1976, reaching #173 nationally. Today it ranks #7491, 7,318 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From ciar to Keri
The story of Keri
Irish county names became given names in the twentieth century — Kerry, Clare, Shannon, Erin — first for boys, then decisively for girls. Kerry crossed in America in the 1960s, and the respellings arrived at once in the fashionable endings: Kerri, Kerrie, Keri. This is the barest of them, and it peaked in the mid-1970s, the last of the four to arrive and the first to fade.
Meaning
of the dark-haired people
From the Irish Ciarraí, 'the people of Ciar'. Ciar is a personal name from the Irish ciar, 'dark' or 'black'. In Welsh, separately, caru means 'to love', and some families read the name that way; the Irish route is the documented one for the American name.
How the name formed
- ciar
- Ciarraí
- Kerry
- Keri
Related forms: Ciarraí · Kerry · Kerri · Keri
Pronouncing Keri
KER-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. All four spellings are said identically.
Nicknames for Keri
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
- 1946
- Most girls named
- 19751,502 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #173reached in 1976
- Change vs 2023
- −22.2%14 in 2025, from 18
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.
Keri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ciarraí in Irish — related form
- Kerry in English — spelling variant
- Kerri in English — spelling variant
- Keri in Japanese — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Keris among us
people named Keri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 114,805 born in 2025 was named Keri
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Keri
- #7491
- Keri on the 2025 chart
- #914
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Keri went to 14 girls in 2025, but Kerry and Kerri are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 46, which makes it the 914th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,577 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 34,941 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 114,805 for Keri itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jeannette test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Keri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jeannette climbed just as high around 1916, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jeannette's path sketches the road Keri is walking now.
Keri 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
Keri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Keri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A real Irish place with a documented etymology behind it.
- The shortest spelling of the four, with nothing doubled or silent.
- Bright and quick, with no pronunciation risk in any accent.
- Four spellings were in use at once and Kerry is much the commonest.
- The name is closely dated to the 1970s.
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What they receive
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Keri
Feminine · #7491 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Keris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 30,500 people named Keri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Keri?
- Keri is one of 3 recorded spellings. Kerry is the more common one — 22 births in 2025 against 14 for Keri.
- How popular is the name Keri in 2025?
- Keri ranks #7491 among US girl names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Keri?
- About 1 in every 114,805 US girls born in 2025 was named Keri — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Keri with classmates?
- Keri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Keri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Christie#7491 · Carmelita#7491 · Jetta#7491 · Hildegard#7491 · Rickie#7491 · Billy#7491 · Angelyn#7491 · Jewell#7491
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Keri? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Keri and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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