Variant spelling of Kenneth, from Gaelic 'Cináed' meaning born of fire or handsome.
Kennith is a variant spelling of Kenneth, a name with deep roots in Scottish Gaelic culture. It derives from "Coinneach," a Gaelic name generally interpreted as meaning "handsome" or "comely one," though some scholars connect it to an older Celtic root suggesting "born of fire." The name passed into broader English usage through Scotland's royal history, most notably through Kenneth MacAlpin, the ninth-century king regarded as the first King of the Scots, who unified the Pictish and Scottish kingdoms around 843 CE.
Throughout the medieval period Kenneth remained closely associated with Scottish identity. It gained renewed pan-English popularity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, carried by figures such as the British art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, whose landmark television series Civilisation brought the name into cultured households across the English-speaking world. The American actor Kenneth Branagh later gave it Shakespearean gravitas.
The Kennith spelling emerged as a soft phonetic variation, common in American naming traditions where alternate spellings individualize a familiar name without altering its sound. It carries the same warm resonance as Kenneth but with a subtly distinctive orthographic character. Though never the dominant spelling, it has persisted steadily through the twentieth century, particularly in the American South and Midwest, lending the name a quietly personal quality while preserving its ancient highland heritage.