McKenney
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname from Scottish Gaelic
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/məˈkɛni/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
McKenney is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 43K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 46K
- KPNorth Korea≈1 in 21K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 357 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 21K (inferred from the name graph)
≈47,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
North Korea, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A surname from Scottish Gaelic.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
McKenney 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | McKenney | 4 |
| US United States | 7,265 | 1 in 46K | 7.3K | McKenney | 357 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | McKenney | 51 |
| KP North Korea | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | McKenney | 2 |
| IT Italy | ≈910 est. | ≈1 in 69K | — | McKenney | 3 |
| IE Ireland | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | McKenney | 3 |
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. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Thomas L. McKenneyb. 1785USAmerican government official (1785–1859)
- William Robertson McKenneyb. 1851USAmerican politician (1851-1916)
- Joe McKenneyb. 1905USAmerican football player and coach (1905-1995)
- Ruth McKenneyb. 1911USAmerican journalist
- Don McKenneyb. 1934CACanadian ice hockey player (1934–2022)
- Catherine McKenneyb. 1961CACanadian politician
- Todd McKenneyb. 1963USAmerican politician
- Todd McKenneyb. 1965AUAustralian actor
- James Felix McKenneyb. 1968USAmerican actor and director
- Erin McKenneyb. 1998USAmerican human rights activist
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 8 sources across 1 country.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 7.3K | #4,852 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6.9K | #4,729 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.8K | #5,008 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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 McKenney mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname from Scottish Gaelic. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce McKenney?
- A machine transcription gives /məˈkɛni/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does McKenney have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 47 thousand people named McKenney in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled McKenney.
- How common is the name McKenney?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,265 people named McKenney in 2010, about 1 in 46 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about McKenney?
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/mckenneyThe 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, “McKenney”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.