Keith

328,988 people in America carry this name — ranked #153 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Baby Boomers.

Say it KEETH

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K IY1 TH — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 328,988 2020 Census
  • As a surname 45,259 ranked #749 the other way round

Where Keith comes from and what it means

Reads literally as “of Keith”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Keith has been given

438,249 babies were given this name since 1888. The busiest year was 1957, with 12,472 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60s 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Keith

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Keith Kevin — same opening
  • Keith Kenneth — same opening
  • Keith Henry — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Keith has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

Boys or girls: who is called Keith?

99.8% men
656 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Same syllables and stress as Keith

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 1 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 75.4%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 17.3%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 2.4%
  • Two or more races — 2.8%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.5%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.6%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Where in America Keith is thickest on the ground

In the District of Columbia the name is given 2.3 times as often as it is across the country.

  • the District of Columbia ×2.3
  • Rhode Island ×1.7
  • New Hampshire ×1.7
  • Vermont ×1.7
  • Delaware ×1.7

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Common

  • People counted328,988
  • Rank#153
  • Roughly1 in 1,007 people

Open the full entry

Open How Rare Is It? on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers