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Updated June 9, 2019

Girl name origins & meanings

  • Arabic : Beloved
  • Hebrew : Crown of laurels
  • Hebrew : Crown of laurels
  • American : Bright; beautiful
  • Irish, Scottish, English : Slender; keeper of the keys
  • Arabic : Laurel
  • Aborigine : Boomerang

Boy name origins & meanings

  • Latin : Rejoice; variation of Gaius
  • Welsh, German : Rejoicer; fort; joyful

How Popular Is The Name Kay

Family name origins & meanings

  • English : nickname from Middle English ca ‘jackdaw’, from an unattested Old Norse . See also Daw.
  • English : nickname from Middle English cai, kay, kei ‘left-handed’, ‘clumsy’.
  • English : metonymic occupational name for a locksmith, from Middle English keye, kaye ‘key’. Compare Care, Kear.
  • English : topographic name for someone living on or near a quay, Middle English kay(e), Old French cay.
  • English : from a Middle English personal name which figures in Arthurian legend. It is found in Old Welsh as Cai, Middle Welsh Kei, and is ultimately from the Latin personal name Gaius.
  • Scottish and Irish : reduced form of McKay.
  • French : variant of Quay, cognate with 2.
  • Much shortened form of any of various names, mostly Eastern European, beginning with the letter K-.
  • Variant of Danish and Frisian Kai.

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