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Kee vs Keelan

American parents have registered 3,942 Keelans since 1880, against 1,416 Kees. Keelan is still ahead, with 55 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kee against Keelan, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kee Keelan

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 113 years in which either name was published, Kee for 59 years and Keelan for 54 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kee Keelan
Total US births 1,4163,942
Most in one year 44152
Babies in 2025 under 555
Estimated living today 6003,900
Median age today 5717
Peak year 19242014
Best rank 1,071st boys1,306th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked2,451st
First recorded 19101967
Girls / boys 10 / 1,406351 / 3,591

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Kees alive today are over 57; half the Keelans are over 17. That is 40 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Kee and Keelan.