Keiko

Meaning of Keiko

Keiko, a feminine appellation of Japanese provenance, manifests diverse semantic dimensions contingent upon the specific kanji employed—examples include 恵子 (“blessed child”), 敬子 (“respectful child”) and 慶子 (“rejoice child”)—and thus encapsulates a spectrum of culturally embedded ideals. Within onomastic scholarship, it is recognized as a paradigm of mid-twentieth-century Japanese naming conventions that sought to harmonize indigenous linguistic traditions with an emergent international sensibility. In English-speaking contexts, Keiko is rendered as [keɪkoʊ], a phonetic adaptation whose clarity and brevity have likely facilitated its cross-cultural adoption. United States Social Security Administration data indicate that, since the 1920s, Keiko’s annual rank has oscillated primarily between the mid-600s and mid-900s—most recently positioned at 927th in 2024 with 23 occurrences—thereby illustrating a pattern of steady yet modest uptake within an Anglo-American milieu.