Kearney
loc · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kearney is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country. Recorded meaning: from Irish Gaelic Ó Ceithearnaigh, meaning descendant of Ceithearnach, literally 'soldier'.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 31Kas Karan(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 32Kas Kiran
- NPNepal≈1 in 869as Karan
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kearney itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nepal (inferred from the name graph)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 442 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 869 (inferred from the name graph)
≈35,000 named Karan, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nepal, est., as Karan
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Karan in GB United Kingdom, KW Kuwait, QA Qatar and 4 more.
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)
from Irish Gaelic Ó Ceithearnaigh, meaning descendant of Ceithearnach, literally 'soldier'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kearney 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | — | ≈35,000 est. | ≈1 in 869 | 3 | Karan | 51 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 14K | #23 | Karan | 62 |
| US United States | — | 10,388as Kiran | 1 in 32K | 21K | Kearney | 442 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Karan | 39 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 31K | 7 | Karan | 216 |
| QA Qatar | #213 | ≈790 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Karan | 20 |
| KW Kuwait | #804 | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Karan | 12 |
| BH Bahrain | #264 | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 6.9K | — | Karan | 14 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Kearney is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, street. San Francisco. CA
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
‘Soldier’. Var.: O’Keamey.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
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)
- Denis Kearneyb. 1847US19th-century American demagogue
- Patrick Kearneyb. 1939USAmerican serial killer
- Richard Kearneyb. 1954IEIrish philosopher
- Gillian Kearneyb. 1972GBBritish actress
- Michael Kearneyb. 1984USAmerican child prodigy
- Hannah Kearneyb. 1986USfreestyle skier
- Rob Kearneyb. 1986IEIrish rugby union footballer
- Ruth Kearneyb. 1989IEIrish actress
- David Kearneyb. 1989IEIrish rugby union player
- Bryan Kearneyb. 2000IEIrish disc jockey and trance music producer
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 33 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 21K | #1,730 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 20K | #1,647 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 19K | #1,805 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 198 | #27,021 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 143 | #27,021 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1954 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1945 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1932 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1924 | 10 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1962 | 9 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1928 | 9 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1921 | 9 | — |
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
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Kearney mean, and where does it come from?
- from Irish Gaelic Ó Ceithearnaigh, meaning descendant of Ceithearnach, literally 'soldier'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Kearney have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 35 thousand people named Karan in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kearney?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,388 people named Kiran in 2020, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
- How common is Kearney compared with other names?
- In Qatar, Kearney is the 213th most common given name of 12,797 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kearney?
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/kearneyThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Kearney” — the 213th most common given name in Qatar. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.