Mckinlee

Meaning & origin

Mckinlee first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1994, a period when creatively spelled surname-names were rising in popularity for girls. It reached its highest rank of 3,645 in 2019, with roughly 1 in 39,202 newborn girls receiving the name that year. Since 2019, however, its usage has been falling, mirroring the broader cooling of the surname-as-first-name trend. Virginia, where the name was most concentrated in the 2010s, led its adoption, possibly reflecting regional taste for names like McKinley and Kinley. The respelling with 'ee' instead of 'ey' aligns with a pattern seen in other names like Rylee and Paislee, which emphasizes feminine endings. Mckinlee shares stylistic ground with other surname-influenced girls' names such as Addison and Kensley, while the underlying Scottish root ties it to a heritage of patronymics.

Mckinlee is a modern respelling of McKinley, which itself is an Anglicized form of the Scottish Gaelic surname Mac Choinnigh, meaning 'son of Coinneach.' The given name Coinneach means 'fair one, fair-haired' or 'comely.' In Ireland and Scotland, 'son of' names were traditionally patronymic, but McKinley has been used as a given name since at least the 20th century. The spelling Mckinlee with 'ee' emerged in the 1990s as part of a trend of feminizing surnames by altering the ending.