Kenneth
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Gaelic Coinneach, meaning 'handsome' or 'born of fire'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kɛnəθ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kenneth is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 46th most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 267(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 316
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 330
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)
- #106 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 648 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 267 (inferred from the name graph)
755,679 people, 2020
of 15M given names
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)
From Gaelic Coinneach, meaning 'handsome' or 'born of fire'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kenneth 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 | #46 | 755,679 | 1 in 440 | 755K | Kenneth | 648 |
| NG Nigeria | #200 | ≈220,000 est. | ≈1 in 964 | — | Kenneth | 149 |
| GB United Kingdom | #64 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 330 | — | Kenneth | 316 |
| EG Egypt | #425 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 922 | — | Kenneth | 30 |
| IT Italy | #126 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 596 | 1 | Kenneth | 86 |
| CA Canada | #53 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 375 | 11 | Kenneth | 305 |
| SE Sweden | #221 | 25,031 | 1 in 408 | 25K | Kenneth | 135 |
| SG Singapore | #11 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 316 | — | Kenneth | 165 |
| IE Ireland | #35 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 267 | — | Kenneth | 128 |
755,679 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Kenneth is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Scottish/Gaelic: handsome, fair; born of fire
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
from a Gaelic personal name (Coinneach) meaning ‘handsome’, now generally Anglicized as Kenneth, although this was originally the Anglicized form of Cionaodh (see McKinney). Etymologically, this surname is equivalent to Kenny (which can arise from either personal name) and McKenzie (which is from Coinneach).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A male given name from Scottish Gaelic, originally used in Scotland, popular in all English-speaking countries in the 20th century.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Apuesto, bello, atractivo
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Swedish, a male given name borrowed from English
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Kenneth MacAlpinb. 810GBKing of the Picts
- Kenneth II of Scotlandb. 932GB10th century King of Alba (Scotland)
- Kenneth III of Scotlandb. 1000GBKing of Alba
- John Kenneth Galbraithb. 1908CACanadian-American economist and diplomat (1908–2006)
- Kenneth Arrowb. 1921USAmerican economist (1921–2017)
- Kenneth Kaundab. 1924ZMFirst president of Zambia (1924–2021)
- Kenneth Waltzb. 1924USAmerican political scientist and international relations theoretician (1924-2013)
- Kenny Rogersb. 1938USnot in their usual nameAmerican country singer (1938–2020)
- Ken Jenningsb. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican game show contestant, host, and writer
- David Harbourb. 1975USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1975)
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 120 sources across 65 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 755K | #43 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 25K | #172 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 13K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.1K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 823 | #43 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 52 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 11 | #402 |
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 given-name 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 Kenneth mean, and where does it come from?
- From Gaelic Coinneach, meaning 'handsome' or 'born of fire'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Kenneth a male or female name?
- Kenneth is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Kenneth?
- In the etymology graph, Kennith, Kenith and Kennet are forms of the same name in other languages; Ken and Kenny are recorded short or pet forms.
- In which country does Kenneth have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 756 thousand people named Kenneth, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kenneth.
- How common is the name Kenneth?
- In the United States, the national register counted 755,679 people named Kenneth in 2020, about 1 in 440 residents.
- How common is Kenneth compared with other names?
- In the United States, Kenneth is the 46th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Kenneth?
- A machine transcription gives /kɛnəθ/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Kenneth?
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/kennethThe 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, “Kenneth” — the 46th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.