Given name & surname
Keats
“kite, bittern”
Keats is a surname from Middle English, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Keats goes back to Old English cȳta, meaning “kite, bittern.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Keats comes from Middle English, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Old English cȳta (“kite, bittern”), from Proto-Germanic *kūtijô, from Proto-Indo-European *gū- (“to cry, screech”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1974. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Keats through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 78
- 78 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2014
- 10 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 6 in 2021. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 10 in 2014. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 168 as a first name in 2020; 692 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
People named Keats
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Keats, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Walsh
“Welsh(man)”
>99% boys
Wilkens
Wilkens is a surname from Middle English.
>99% boys
Braddock
“from the broadly spread oak”
>99% boys
Leeson
Leeson is a surname from Middle English.
>99% boys
Hawken
Hawken is a surname from Middle English.
>99% boys
Devereux
Devereux is a surname from Middle English, ultimately from Anglo-Norman. It is used in English and Middle English.
>99% boys
Sykes
“marshy stream, gutter, ditch”
>99% boys
Jacobson
Jacobson is a given name from Middle English, ultimately from Norwegian. It is used in English and Norwegian Bokmål.
>99% boys