Keyes
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Keyes is a surname, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 83rd most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and , written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: (i) different form of Kay; (ii) person from Guise, Picardy; (iii) from Irish Gaelic Mac Aodha.
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 486◐
- IEIreland1 in 580
- NZNew Zealand1 in 593
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈366K ●
- #441 ●
- 3 ●
- Sources
- 572 ●
- 1 in 187 ◐
across 9 countries
of 16M given names
recorded for this name
6.3M records
Official registry-verified
Croatia
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Keith in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 20 more, Keys in HU Hungary, PL Poland and Koti in IN India.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
(i) different form of Kay; (ii) person from Guise, Picardy; (iii) from Irish Gaelic Mac Aodha
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●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | #83 | 427,337 | 376K rec. | — | 13 | Keith | 270 |
| US United States | #99 | 328,332 | 5.2M rec. | 1 in 1K | 328K | Keith | 572 |
| AU Australia | #166 | 142,877 | 132K rec. | — | 75 | Keith | 265 |
| CA Canada | #113 | 113,513 | 115K rec. | — | 3 | Keith | 227 |
| IN India | — | 37,260 | 54K rec. | — | 17K | Koti | 119 |
| PH Philippines | #807 | 26,139 | 22K rec. | — | — | Keith | 134 |
| IT Italy | #337 | 24,826 | 27K rec. | — | 1 | Keith | 73 |
| HR Croatia | — | 22,615△ | 2 rec. | 1 in 187 | 23K | — | 1 |
| DE Germany | #694 | 19,064 | 20K rec. | — | 1 | Keith | 138 |
| ZA South Africa | #171 | 16,722 | 17K rec. | — | — | Keith | 138 |
| IE Ireland | #85 | 16,129 | 14K rec. | — | 6 | Keith | 149 |
| NZ New Zealand | #44 | 14,368 | 13K rec. | — | 10 | Keith | 125 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English153K85%
- 5.1K3%
- Spanish4.9K3%
- Chinese3.4K2%
- Welsh1.8K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 152,506 | 85% |
| 5,089 | 3% | |
| Spanish | 4,936 | 3% |
| Chinese | 3,435 | 2% |
| Welsh | 1,755 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Keyes 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, habitational name from Guise in Aisne, Picardy, which is first recorded in the 12th century as Gusia-, the etymology is uncertain.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Aodha (see McKay).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Frances Parkinson, US novelist
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, variant of Kay.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Irish, An English name often used in Ireland for MacKee
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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●
- Wade Keyesb. 1821USAmerican politician (1821-1879)
- Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyesb. 1872GBRoyal Navy officer (1872-1945)
- Geoffrey Keyesb. 1888USUnited States Army officer, American football coach (1888-1967)
- Evelyn Keyesb. 1916USAmerican film actress (1916-2008)
- Daniel Keyesb. 1927USAmerican author
- Alan Keyesb. 1950USAmerican politician (born 1950)
- Irwin Keyesb. 1952USAmerican character actor (1952-2015)
- Marian Keyesb. 1963IEIrish writer
- Gregory Keyesb. 1963USwriter of science fiction and fantasy
- Israel Keyesb. 1978USAmerican serial killer (1978–2012)
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●
Attested in 21 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 18K | #1,979 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 16K | #2,079 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 16K | #2,222 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 17 | #27,102 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 14 | #101,339 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 12 | #52,468 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 4 | #108,050 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 3 | #64,213 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 2 | — |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 2 | #196,662 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 2 | #347,038 |
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 2026-09-12 data build · 18 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Keyes?
- We estimate roughly 366 thousand people bear Keyes (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Keyes have the most bearers?
- Keyes is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled keith.
- Where is Keyes most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Keyes is densest in Croatia — about 1 in 187 people — even though United Kingdom holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Keyes compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Keyes is the 83rd most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Keyes mean?
- Recorded meaning: (i) different form of Kay; (ii) person from Guise, Picardy; (iii) from Irish Gaelic Mac Aodha
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/keyesThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
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, “Keyes” — the 83rd most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.