Mckenzie
- Pronunciation
- [M-cken-zie]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- The Fair One.
- Origin
- Scottish
About the Name Mckenzie
Mckenzie is the alternate American spelling of Mackenzie (see separate entry on Mackenzie for the Scottish Gaelic MacCoinnich etymology meaning "son of Coinneach"). The Mc-spelling without the A is essentially a 21st-century American invention, appearing in SSA records starting in the 2000s.
The two spellings (Mackenzie and Mckenzie) are tracked separately by SSA but represent the same underlying Scottish surname. The Mckenzie spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form than the more traditional Mackenzie. Both spellings have been used predominantly for girls in modern American naming.
Mckenzie climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2000 to the US top 200 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal is the same as Mackenzie's underlying — Highland-clan heritage, surname-style sophistication, three syllables — combined with the slightly more streamlined Mc-spelling that signals modern American aesthetic. Common nicknames Mac, Kenzie (the dominant modern short form), and the rare Mackie each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Mackenzie, MacKenzie, and Makenzie all have their own SSA tracking. There are no significant pre-modern international variants since the Mc-spelling is essentially modern American; the original Scottish Gaelic MacCoinnich remains the etymological source.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Mckenzie
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Mckenzie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 2,528 girls named Mckenzie (girl rank #133 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #576 for girls (517 US births). That's 443 places below its 2000 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 Mckenzie Most Popular?
Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Mckenzie the strongest states are Mississippi, Delaware, Georgia.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #139 | 199 |
| 2 | Delaware | #160 | 26 |
| 3 | Georgia | #165 | 645 |
| 4 | South Carolina | #167 | 296 |
| 5 | New Mexico | #170 | 79 |
| 6 | Maine | #181 | 22 |
| 7 | District of Columbia | #182 | 42 |
| 8 | North Dakota | #187 | 26 |
| 9 | West Virginia | #200 | 82 |
| 10 | South Dakota | #206 | 25 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #501 | 720 |
| 2 | Colorado | #469 | 139 |
| 3 | Oklahoma | #457 | 100 |
| 4 | Washington | #447 | 172 |
| 5 | Arizona | #437 | 163 |
| 6 | Iowa | #434 | 52 |
| 7 | Indiana | #426 | 162 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #411 | 138 |
| 9 | New Jersey | #404 | 215 |
| 10 | Utah | #400 | 115 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Mckenzie in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Mckenzie?
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 Mckenzie to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Mckenzie against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).