Keely
Keely was given to 63 girls in 2025, #2,737 among girls’ names; 12,719 Americans have been recorded with it since 1957 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 12,300 Americans named Keely and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (97% of everyone recorded); the median is 29 years old and half are between 20 and 40.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Keely by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Keely mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Keely is “a female given name transferred from the surname.”
Variant of Keeley.
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Keely?
#2,737 among girls’ names, 2025
Keely fell from #2,002 in 2015 to #2,737 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 55.5 to 39.2 per million.
555 babies in 1997, the peak
Keely peaked in 1997, when 555 girls were given it, #455 among girls’ names. The 63 births of 2025 are 11% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 63 | #2,737 | 0.04 |
| 2024 | 94 | #2,061 | 0.06 |
| 2023 | 66 | #2,658 | 0.04 |
| 2022 | 87 | #2,183 | 0.05 |
| 2021 | 73 | #2,451 | 0.04 |
| 2020 | 67 | #2,565 | 0.04 |
| 2019 | 57 | #2,911 | 0.03 |
| 2018 | 85 | #2,199 | 0.05 |
| 2017 | 81 | #2,294 | 0.05 |
| 2016 | 86 | #2,237 | 0.05 |
Every recorded year (69)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 99 | #2,002 | 0.06 |
| 2014 | 131 | #1,640 | 0.07 |
| 2013 | 149 | #1,491 | 0.08 |
| 2012 | 171 | #1,369 | 0.10 |
| 2011 | 185 | #1,283 | 0.11 |
| 2010 | 214 | #1,144 | 0.12 |
| 2009 | 286 | #937 | 0.16 |
| 2008 | 335 | #842 | 0.18 |
| 2007 | 399 | #731 | 0.21 |
| 2006 | 407 | #698 | 0.21 |
| 2005 | 318 | #814 | 0.17 |
| 2004 | 335 | #772 | 0.18 |
| 2003 | 368 | #711 | 0.20 |
| 2002 | 397 | #640 | 0.22 |
| 2001 | 398 | #633 | 0.22 |
| 2000 | 416 | #610 | 0.23 |
| 1999 | 382 | #622 | 0.22 |
| 1998 | 466 | #537 | 0.26 |
| 1997 | 555 | #455 | 0.32 |
| 1996 | 454 | #518 | 0.26 |
| 1995 | 205 | #919 | 0.12 |
| 1994 | 227 | #864 | 0.13 |
| 1993 | 239 | #825 | 0.13 |
| 1992 | 288 | #737 | 0.16 |
| 1991 | 259 | #792 | 0.14 |
| 1990 | 267 | #765 | 0.14 |
| 1989 | 211 | #873 | 0.11 |
| 1988 | 158 | #1,025 | 0.09 |
| 1987 | 152 | #1,017 | 0.09 |
| 1986 | 177 | #912 | 0.10 |
| 1985 | 180 | #890 | 0.10 |
| 1984 | 202 | #794 | 0.12 |
| 1983 | 157 | #946 | 0.09 |
| 1982 | 183 | #851 | 0.11 |
| 1981 | 155 | #949 | 0.09 |
| 1980 | 158 | #950 | 0.10 |
| 1979 | 171 | #886 | 0.11 |
| 1978 | 182 | #822 | 0.12 |
| 1977 | 137 | #992 | 0.09 |
| 1976 | 119 | #1,038 | 0.08 |
| 1975 | 140 | #925 | 0.10 |
| 1974 | 133 | #935 | 0.09 |
| 1973 | 123 | #967 | 0.08 |
| 1972 | 99 | #1,123 | 0.07 |
| 1971 | 88 | #1,258 | 0.05 |
| 1970 | 113 | #1,075 | 0.06 |
| 1969 | 123 | #966 | 0.07 |
| 1968 | 77 | #1,252 | 0.05 |
| 1967 | 55 | #1,519 | 0.03 |
| 1966 | 41 | #1,781 | 0.02 |
| 1965 | 40 | #1,817 | 0.02 |
| 1964 | 56 | #1,527 | 0.03 |
| 1963 | 74 | #1,284 | 0.04 |
| 1962 | 69 | #1,337 | 0.04 |
| 1961 | 88 | #1,175 | 0.04 |
| 1960 | 118 | #988 | 0.06 |
| 1959 | 119 | #966 | 0.06 |
| 1958 | 84 | #1,158 | 0.04 |
| 1957 | 7 | #5,130 | under 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Keely a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Keely has been given almost only to girls: 21 boys in 69 years of records.
Girls and boys named Keely: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Keely, and how old are they?
12,300 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 97% of the 12,719 Americans ever recorded as Keely. The median Keely alive today is 29 years old; half are between 20 and 40.
The 2020 Census counted 11,483 people named Keely (11,371 women and girls, 112 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 12,013 born in the U.S. The Census count is 4% below that prediction.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Baby Boomers | 1946-1964 | 521 |
| Generation X | 1965-1980 | 1,680 |
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 3,430 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 5,580 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 1,130 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Keely born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 6 | #3,120 | 1.0× |
Where Keely is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Keely is most over-represented in Oklahoma: since 1957 it was given 1.6 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Keely with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 726,067 babies since 1880, Keely is the fourth most given (1.8% of them). In 2025 it was given to 63 of their 1,303 babies (4.8%), the sixth most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Keely
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Keely and names like it
- Compare Keely and KellyBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 1990sKeely peaked in 1997.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Keely since 1910.
- From surnamesWiktionary’s origin for Keely: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 1997The year the most babies were named Keely.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Keely alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with KMost given first.