Mckinley

As mentioned above, McKinley started out as a masculine given name in the United States dating back to 1890. Not coincidentally, McKinley saw the height of his usage between 1896 and 1901 which were the years President McKinley happened to be in office. In fact, McKinley came awfully close to securing a spot on the Top 100 list of most commonly used boy names in the country. Pretty impressive indeed! Unfortunately, our 25th president was assassinated by a disgruntled madman in 1901. His name quickly retreated into the shadows of Teddy Roosevelt, a strong-willed president with a booming personality. McKinley quickly fell off the American radar as a boy’s name. It would finally fall off the list altogether in 1967. However, in 2006, American parents discovered this quaint Gaelic moniker for their baby daughters. In a few short years, McKinley has already climbed to levels of low moderation for the female persuasion securing the name as exclusively feminine by today’s naming standards. It’s doubtful that parents have our 25th president in mind when naming their baby daughters McKinley, but rather it follows the hyper-popular trend of surnames as first names. There is also a particular trend for naming girls these “McK” type female names (think: McKayla, McKenna, McKenzie). Oh, and here’s a bit of trivia for parents who like to sing the blues. McKinley Morganfield is the birth name of Muddy Waters, the “father of modern Chicago blues”.