Find out how popular the last name Kennelly is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Kennelly.

Kennelly, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Kennelly surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Kennelly in America

Kennelly is the 9666th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Kennelly surname appeared 3,358 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 people would have the surname Kennelly.

We can also compare 2010 data for Kennelly to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Kennelly

The surname Kennelly is of Irish origin, deriving from the Gaelic name Ó Cionnaoithe, which means "descendant of Cionaoth." Cionaoth was a personal name derived from the Old Irish words "cion" meaning "head" and "aith" meaning "prayer." The name likely originated in the 10th or 11th century in County Cork, Ireland.

The earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in the Annals of Inisfallen, a chronicle of medieval Irish history written by monks in the 12th century. The name appears in various spellings, such as O'Kinealy, O'Kennealy, and O'Kinnelly, throughout medieval Irish records and manuscripts.

In the late 16th century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the English administration in Ireland attempted to standardize the spelling of Irish surnames to make them more anglicized. This led to the emergence of the Kennelly spelling, which became more prevalent in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Notable individuals with the Kennelly surname include:

1. Patrick Kennelly (1779-1864), an Irish nationalist and member of the United Irishmen, a revolutionary republican movement in the late 18th century.
2. Arthur Edwin Kennelly (1861-1939), an American electrical engineer and physicist who made significant contributions to the development of alternating current (AC) theory and the understanding of electromagnetic waves.
3. Brendan Kennelly (1936-2021), an Irish poet, novelist, and cultural commentator, widely regarded as one of the most important voices in contemporary Irish literature.
4. Michael Kennelly (born 1990), an Australian rules footballer who played for the Brisbane Lions and Geelong Cats in the Australian Football League (AFL).
5. Nicola Kennelly (born 1986), an English actress best known for her roles in television series such as Silent Witness and Derry Girls.

The Kennelly surname has also been associated with various place names in Ireland, such as Killakennelly (derived from the Irish "Cill a' Chionaoithe," meaning "church of the descendant of Cionaoth") and Ballyknockane (from "Baile Uí Chionnaoithe," meaning "town of the descendant of Cionaoth").

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Kennelly

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Kennelly.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Kennelly was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Kennelly has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Kennelly was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Kennelly, please contact us.

Reference this page

We spend a lot of resources downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!