Kevan
Masculine · “gentle and handsome”
Kevan is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 3,479 boys against 52 girls since 1880.
Kevan is the surname spelling of a name that most people meet only as a first name. Kevin came into English from Irish; Kevan came in as a family name from the same source, and when American parents began using it at the front of the name they were reaching for the older written form without necessarily knowing it.
How old is the name Kevan?
Kevan first appears in US birth records in 1945 — 80 years ago. The typical Kevan alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 3,100 people named Kevan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kevan most popular?
Kevan peaked in 1956, reaching #796 nationally. See the whole 1956 chart.
Where it comes from
From Caoimhin to Kevan
The story of Kevan
Irish surnames beginning with O and Mac were stripped of their prefixes wholesale during the centuries when Irish names were being recorded in English, and what was left was often the bare personal name with whatever spelling the clerk chose. Kevan is one of those survivals: an Irish family name in Ulster and Leinster, written without the O that once stood in front of it. The a rather than the i is not a modern respelling but the older English convention for that vowel, which is why it looks unusual now and did not then. Americans took it to the front of the name in the middle of the twentieth century, and the record shows it given to girls as well as boys.
Meaning
gentle and handsome
The Old Irish original joins a word meaning gentle, dear or beautiful to a diminutive ending. It is one of the small number of Irish names whose meaning is genuinely agreed on.
How the name formed
- Caoimhin
- Kevan
Related forms: Caoimhin · Kevin
Pronouncing Kevan
KEV-un
Two syllables with the weight at the front, the second reduced to a hum. Kevin and Kevan are said identically in most American speech.
Nicknames for Kevan
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
- 1945
- Most boys named
- 198688 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #796reached in 1956
- Change vs 2022
- +42.9%10 in 2024, from 7
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.
Kevan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caoimhin in Irish — same name
- Kevin in English — spelling variant
Kevans among us
people named Kevan 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
Kevan 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
- It is said correctly at sight by anyone who has met the commoner spelling.
- Kev works as a short form and asks nothing of anyone.
- It is a genuine Irish surname spelling rather than an invented variant.
- Kevin is the standard spelling and will be written instead on almost every form.
- The spelling is recorded for girls as well as boys in the United States.
- It reads as a name of the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Kevan
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Kevans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,100 people named Kevan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kevan in 2025?
- Kevan is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Kevan with classmates?
- Kevan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Kenneth#294 · Kevin#221 · Kyle#508 · Keith#800 · Karl#1585 · Kaleb#295 · Kurt#2258 · Kelly#1867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kevan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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