Keith
- Pronunciation
- [Keith]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- From The Battlefield
- Origin
- Irish
About the Name Keith
Keith descends from the Scottish Gaelic place-name meaning "forest" or "woodland" — referring to the historic Keith region in Banffshire, northeastern Scotland. The name first appears as a Scottish surname referring to those from such places, particularly associated with the Keith family of medieval Scottish nobility (the Earls Marischal of Scotland).
Notable bearers include the iconic British rock musician Keith Richards (using Richards as a surname, born 1943, the iconic British guitarist of the Rolling Stones); American basketball player Keith Hernandez (using Hernandez as a surname, born 1953, the iconic American MLB first baseman); American actor Keith David (born 1956, the iconic American voice actor and actor); and the iconic American TV personality Keith Olbermann.
Keith held a US top-50 boys' rank from 1955 through 1985 — about three decades of consistent American popularity, peaking around 1965 at #26 in the United States. The name has receded slightly since but remains in steady use, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal is its compact one-syllable register, instantly readable, the in-built Scottish-medieval-noble pedigree, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Scottish and contemporary American with the strong Keith Richards cultural anchor. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Keithy (the dominant short form, casual and warm) and the rare Keath each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Keith and Keath have their own SSA tracking. International variants are minimal since the name's first-name use is essentially Scottish-American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Keith
US Popularity History (1946–2025)
Annual US births named Keith by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1957 with 12,437 boys named Keith (boy rank #36 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #801 for boys (311 US births). That's 765 places below its 1957 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Keith Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Keith the strongest states are West Virginia, Mississippi, Idaho.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Virginia | #351 | 16 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #429 | 45 |
| 3 | Idaho | #434 | 15 |
| 4 | Kansas | #449 | 41 |
| 5 | Missouri | #450 | 126 |
| 6 | Alabama | #451 | 68 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #451 | 118 |
| 8 | Arkansas | #460 | 51 |
| 9 | Iowa | #467 | 37 |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | #488 | 198 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #797 | 310 |
| 2 | Washington | #754 | 51 |
| 3 | Arizona | #728 | 72 |
| 4 | Texas | #724 | 357 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | #705 | 38 |
| 6 | Illinois | #705 | 125 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #689 | 89 |
| 8 | Colorado | #683 | 36 |
| 9 | Tennessee | #645 | 102 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #643 | 62 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Keith in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Famous People Named Keith
6 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Keith.
- Keith David — Movie Actor (1956)
- Keith Haring was renowned for his graffiti works.
- Keith Moon — Drummer (1946)
- Keith Richards — Guitarist (1943)
- Keith Sweat — R&B Singer (1961)
- Keith Urban — Country Singer (1967)
Looking for names like Keith?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Keith to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Keith against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).