Meaning & origin
Where it comes from
Kinney comes from Irish, and ultimately from Scottish Gaelic.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1922. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Kinney through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 354
- 354 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1961
- 15 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 5 in 1993. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 15 in 1961. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 343 as a first name in 2020; 30,180 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.
Kinney’s family of names
Inner ring: spellings · outer: nicknames and forms.
Nicknames & forms 1
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Spellings & scripts 4
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Similar names
If you love Kinney, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Keefe
“a handsome and beloved man”
>99% boys
Rafer
“a wealthy man”
>99% boys
Cary
“from the river” · “from the fort on the hill”
95% boys · 5% girls
Gilroy
“son of the redhaired lad” · “the son of a red-haired man”
>99% boys
Ranald
“the king's advisor”
>99% boys
Macdonald
“the son of Donald”
>99% boys
Derry
“from the oak grove” · “from the grove of oak trees”
92% boys · 8% girls
Kelvin
“a friend of ships; a man of the river”
>99% boys