Kennedy

77,115 people in America carry this name — ranked #683 of 923.

A name being given more often than it was a generation ago.

Say it KEH nuh dee

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K EH1 N AH0 D IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 77,115 2020 Census
  • Per 100,000 25.5 about 1 in 4,298 people
  • As a surname 171,457 ranked #149 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Kennedy

Reads literally as “from the Gaelic or Celtic words Kean-na-ty”.

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.

Kennedy through the years

85,125 babies were given this name since 1912. The busiest year was 2015, with 4,684 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 2010s. It has been given more 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.

What goes well after Kennedy

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Kennedy Karen — same opening
  • Kennedy Kathleen — same opening
  • Kennedy Kelly — same opening

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.

A name and a surname

Kennedy is carried in front of the comma and behind it — thousands of Americans have it as a surname too.

Is Kennedy used for boys or for girls?

8.7% men
70,373 women

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

Where in America Kennedy is thickest on the ground

In Georgia the name is given 1.7 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Georgia ×1.7
  • South Dakota ×1.7
  • Nevada ×1.6
  • South Carolina ×1.5
  • Idaho ×1.5

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.

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 59.0%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 25.6%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 7.0%
  • Two or more races — 6.3%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.6%
  • 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.

How to spell Kennedy

Kennedy is how 60% of them spell it — 128,781 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher 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