Mckay
Masculine · “son of Aodh”
Mckay is given to both — 2,296 boys and 369 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
McKay is a Scottish Highland surname meaning son of Aodh — and Aodh was the ordinary Old Irish and Gaelic word for fire, as well as the name of a god.
How old is the name Mckay?
Mckay first appears in US birth records in 1917 — 108 years ago. The typical Mckay alive today was born around 2003, making them about 22 years old. About 2,200 people named Mckay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Mckay most popular?
Mckay peaked in 1995, reaching #1182 nationally. Today it ranks #3583, 2,401 places below that high. See the whole 1995 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aodh to Mckay
The story of Mckay
The Mackays held Strathnaver in the far north of Scotland and were one of the substantial Highland clans. Their name records descent from a man called Aodh, a name so common in the Gaelic world that it produced McKay, McCoy, Hughes, Keegan and Hayes as it was written into English in different places. The surname reached America with Scottish and Ulster emigration, and its use as a given name is recent and concentrated in the intermountain West.
Meaning
son of Aodh, the fire
From Gaelic Mac Aodha, son of Aodh; the personal name is the word for fire and was among the commonest men's names in early Ireland and Gaelic Scotland.
How the name formed
- Aodh
- Mac Aodha
- McKay
Related forms: Mac Aodha · McCoy · MacAoidh
Pronouncing Mckay
muh-KAY
Two syllables with the stress on the second. Some Scottish usage stresses the first, MAK-eye.
Nicknames for Mckay
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
- 199596 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1182reached in 1995
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%31 in 2025, from 31
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.
Mckay in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Mac Aodha in Irish — related form
- McCoy in English — related form
- MacAoidh in Scottish Gaelic — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Utah, Idaho, California.
Mckays among us
people named Mckay are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 55,099 born in 2025 was named Mckay
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Mckay
- #3583
- Mckay on the 2025 chart
- #885
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Mckay went to 31 boys in 2025, but Mkai is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 43, which makes it the 885th most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,698 places above the chart.
- Mckay31
- Mkai12
About 1 boy in 39,723 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 55,099 for Mckay 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 Cardell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Mckay's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Cardell climbed just as high around 1955, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Cardell's path sketches the road Mckay is walking now.
Mckay 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
Where Mckay is headed
Mckay should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Mckay beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Mckay in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Gaelic meaning with a genuinely vivid element behind it.
- Read correctly on sight by most English speakers.
- Mac is a plain short form that works at any age.
- It is used for girls as well in American records, so forms may guess wrong.
- Mckay, McKay and MacKay are all in use and the capitalization varies.
- The name literally means son of, which reads oddly in front of another name.
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Mckay
Masculine · #3583 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Mckays are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Mckay are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Mckay?
- Mckay is the most-used spelling in US records — 31 of the 43 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Mkai.
- How popular is the name Mckay in 2025?
- Mckay ranks #3583 among US boy names in 2025, with 31 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Mckay?
- About 1 in every 55,099 US boys born in 2025 was named Mckay — 31 in all.
- Will my child share the name Mckay with classmates?
- Mckay will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Mckay
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Geoffrey#3583 · Robinson#3583 · Kimani#3583 · Emre#3583 · Yoan#3583 · Anirudh#3583 · Sutter#3583 · Heber#3583
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Mckay? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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