Kevin

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Boy · Irish

Kevin

Say it: KEV-in

Try it with your surname

Meaning

From Irish Caoimhín, from caomh 'gentle, kind, handsome' with a diminutive ending.

Likelythe main view, with some doubt.

Gentle

Long Irish, borne by a 7th-century saint, it became one of the top American boys' names from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Its wave through time

A fashion of the 1960s

In the United States

0510152018801900192019401960198020002020Peak 1965per 1,000 babies of that sex
  • 1,180,280 babies given this name since 1912
  • At its height in 1965, about 1 in 66 boys
  • 2,367 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
  2. The Modern Age1880 to today

Used by

IrishEnglishAmerican

The family of the name

Other spellings: Kevan

IrishCaoimhín

Famous bearers

  • Saint Kevin of Glendalough, Irish abbot
  • Kevin Costner, American actor

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
  • The Irish annals and early Irish literature
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.