Entry № 5381 · Irish origin

Kennedy Kennedy — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ KEN-eh-dee /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Irish
Meaning
"Helmeted chief"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Surname: medieval

A name that means "helmeted chief".

Kennedy comes from the Irish surname Ó Cinnéide, meaning "descendant of Cinnéide" — where Cinnéide is from cenn (head) and éide (armour, helmet) — translating roughly as "helmeted head" or "helmeted chief."

John F. Kennedy, the 35th U.S. President, gave the surname its modern resonance.

Helmeted chief — a Irish name.

The name in its native script.

Kennedy
Transliteration
Kennedy
Pronunciation
/ ˈkɛn.ə.di /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Kennedy stands.

Kennedy does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Kennedys before her.

Real people

In fiction

Names connected to Kennedy.

The number behind Kennedy.

6

The Nurturer

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Kennedy reduce to 6, The Nurturer. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.