Keith Is Not in the Bible — It Is a Scottish Name Meaning “Wood”

Keith is not in the Bible. It comes from a Scottish surname taken from an estate in East Lothian, and the estate’s name probably comes from a Celtic word for “wood.” It has no Hebrew origin and no meaning in Scripture.

What does Keith mean?

Keith probably means “wood.” The Keith family took its surname from the lands of Keith in East Lothian, and the place name is traced to a Brittonic word related to the Welsh coed, “wood.” Brittonic languages were spoken across much of early Scotland and belong with Welsh rather than with Gaelic, so the Gaelic coille, which is sometimes given as the source, is a different word.

The Keiths became one of the leading families of Scotland and held the hereditary office of Marischal of Scotland for centuries. Keith came into use as a first name in the nineteenth century and was common across the English-speaking world in the twentieth.

Is Keith in the Bible?

No. Keith is a Celtic place name that became a Scottish surname, and it occurs nowhere in Scripture. No Hebrew or Greek word lies behind it, and no biblical figure bears it.

A Bible passage for a name that means “wood”

Scripture gives no meaning to names from outside it. If you are looking for a passage that fits Keith’s meaning, the first psalm compares the person who delights in God’s law to “a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3). Jeremiah uses the same picture for “the one who trusts in the Lord”: a tree whose roots reach the stream, which “does not fear when heat comes” and “never fails to bear fruit” even in a year of drought (Jeremiah 17:7-8).

Related reading

• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names
• 24 Best Bible Verses About Trees