Keenan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Irish Gaelic: dark, black; feminine form also listed
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkinən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Keenan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 3.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 6.5K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7.1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 447 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.2K (inferred from the name graph)
20,353 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Irish Gaelic: dark, black; feminine form also listed.
Sources 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Keenan counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 20,353 | 1 in 16K | 20K | Keenan | 447 |
| GB United Kingdom | #684 | ≈9,300 est. | ≈1 in 7.1K | 4 | Keenan | 240 |
| AU Australia | #782 | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | 3 | Keenan | 157 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 4 | Keenan | 163 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 48K | — | Keenan | 7 |
| IE Ireland | #247 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.2K | — | Keenan | 106 |
| NZ New Zealand | #535 | ≈760 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | 11 | Keenan | 99 |
20,353 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Keenan is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 Clanain ‘son of Ciandn’, a personal name from a diminutive of dan ‘distant’, ‘long’, or possibly of Mac Fhlnghln ‘fair offspring’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Transferred used of the Irish surname, Gaelic O Ciandin ‘descendant of 138 : Cianan’. The latter is a personal name representing a diminutive of Cian.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Irish Gaelic: little ancient.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Frank Keenanb. 1858USAmerican actor and film director (1858-1929)
- Joseph B. Keenanb. 1888USAmerican politician (1888-1954)
- Maynard James Keenanb. 1964USAmerican singer
- Michael Keenanb. 1972AUAustralian politician
- Will Keenanb. 1974USAmerican film producer
- Sinead Keenanb. 1977IEactress from Dublin, Ireland
- Rory Keenanb. 1980IEIrish actor (born 1980)
- Corey Gravesb. 1984USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler
- Jessica Keenan Wynnb. 1986USAmerican actress and singer
- Nicolás Keenanb. 1997ARArgentine field hockey player
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 60 sources across 33 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 14K | #1,922 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 363 | #1,922 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 149 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 31 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2008 | 11 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 4 | #922 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 4 | #619 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2017 | 3 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2017 | 3 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2017 | 3 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2013 | 3 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Keenan mean, and where does it come from?
- Irish Gaelic: dark, black; feminine form also listed. Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- How do you pronounce Keenan?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkinən/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Keenan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 20,353 people named Keenan in 2010, about 1 in 16 thousand residents.
- How common is Keenan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Keenan is the 247th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
- In which country does Keenan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 20 thousand people named Keenan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled keenan.
What do you want to know about Keenan?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/keenanThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Keenan” — the 247th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.