Keene
An English surname that can come from a nickname for someone sharp or keen, or from places called St Keyne/Keyne in Cornwall.
The #2,032 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 17,432 Americans shares it.
Etymology
This surname has more than one plausible origin. In English records it is often treated as a nickname from Middle English keen, meaning sharp, eager, or quick. It can also be locational, from St Keyne in Cornwall, or in some cases linked to Irish names such as O'Kean; older writers also proposed a Gaelic source from ceann, “head.”
History
The spelling appears in several forms, including Keen, Keane, and Keyne, and the name was already established in medieval and early modern English records. Nineteenth-century surname writers often disagreed about whether a given family line was English locational, nickname-based, or Irish in origin. In the United States, Keene is a well-established but not especially common surname.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
St Keyne in Cornwall gave rise to a whole cluster of surname spellings, which helped blur the line between a place-name surname and a nickname surname.
From the historical record
“HeMcT Keane: St. Hicbael, Corehill, 1617. — Jahn Keene and Kaiberine Andrew! : Ibid. p. 91. 1681. Buried — Tbomaa Keyne: ibid. London. 11, 35, 90, o, o; New York,”
— A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, with special American instances