Kenny

Originally a pet form of Kenneth, rooted in the Gaelic names Cainnech and Cináed. American parents began registering it directly on birth certificates in 1908, bypassing the formal root entirely. It thrived through mid-twentieth-century decades when diminutive given names were at their high-water mark.

The name reads as permanently informal, regardless of the age printed on the driver's license. It belongs to Little League dugouts, transistor radios, and station wagons with the tailgate down. Even as the typical bearer approaches fifty, the name resists the boardroom. It suggests someone who kept a childhood nickname simply because no one ever told him to stop.