Keegan
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Keegan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: from Irish Gaelic Mac Aodhagáin, 'son of Aodhagán', literally 'little little fire'; also from Mac Thadhgáin, 'son of Tadgán', literally 'little poet'.
- IEIreland≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 13K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 15K
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)
- Sources
- 408 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
10,354 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Irish Gaelic MacAodhagáin(measured from records)
- MacThadhgáin(measured from records)
from Irish Gaelic Mac Aodhagáin, 'son of Aodhagán', literally 'little little fire'; also from Mac Thadhgáin, 'son of Tadgán', literally 'little poet'.
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)
Keegan 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 | — | 10,354 | 1 in 32K | 33K | Keegan | 408 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈4,300 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 6 | Keegan | 199 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 4 | Keegan | 148 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 42K | 1 | Keegan | 15 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 28K | 5 | Keegan | 162 |
| IE Ireland | #366 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Keegan | 121 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 17K | 11 | Keegan | 71 |
10,354 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; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; 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; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); 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)
Keegan 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.
dim. of Aodh ‘Fire’; cf. McKay. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. Mac Thadhgain, patr. from the personal name Tadhgdn, a dim. of the byname Tadhg ‘Poet’; cf. Tighe. Keeley 1. Irish: Anglicized form of Gael. 6 Caollaidhe ‘descendant of Caollaidhe’, a personal name derived from caol slender, graceful. 2. English: var. of Keighley. Vars. (of 1): Keely, Keal(e)y; Queely, Queal(l)y; Kiely.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
Aodhagain, patr. from the personal name Aodhagdn, a double dim. of Aodh ‘Fire’; cf. McK.ay. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. Mac Thadhgain, patr. from the personal name Tadhgdn, a dim. of the byname Tadhg ‘Poet’; cf.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Aodhagain ‘son of Aodhagdn', a personal name that is a pet form of the ancient Irish personal name Aodh ‘fire’ (see McKay).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Transferred use of the Irish surname, an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Aodhagdin, a patronymic from the personal name Aodhagdn, double diminutive of Aodh (see p Aidan).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Celtic: father's dark child.
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)
- Bob Keeganb. 1920USAmerican baseball player (1920-2001)
- John Keeganb. 1934GBBritish military historian, lecturer, writer and journalist (1934–2012)
- Kevin Keeganb. 1951GBEnglish association football player and manager (1951–2026)
- Rupert Keeganb. 1955GBracecar driver (1955–2024)
- Claire Keeganb. 1968IEIrish writer of short stories
- Gillian Keeganb. 1968GBBritish politician
- Jimmy Keeganb. 1969USAmerican musician
- Rose Keeganb. 1971GBBritish actress
- Andrew Keeganb. 1979USAmerican actor
- Michelle Keeganb. 1987GBEnglish actress (born 1987)
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 57 sources across 28 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 10K | #3,450 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 9.7K | #3,388 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 9.5K | #3,643 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- 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
- 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 Keegan mean, and where does it come from?
- from Irish Gaelic Mac Aodhagáin, 'son of Aodhagán', literally 'little little fire'; also from Mac Thadhgáin, 'son of Tadgán', literally 'little poet'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Keegan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 10 thousand people named Keegan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled keegan.
- How common is the name Keegan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,354 people named Keegan in 2010, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
- How common is Keegan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Keegan is the 366th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Keegan?
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/keeganThe 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, “Keegan” — the 366th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.