A German and Frisian short form of names like Konrad, carrying the sense of bold counsel.
Keno carries multiple potential origins that converge in interesting ways. Most etymologists trace the lottery game's name — and by extension this name — to the French *quine*, meaning "five winning numbers," itself from Latin *quini*, meaning "five each." The game arrived in America with French immigrants in New Orleans in the early nineteenth century and became a staple of frontier saloons and riverboat gambling culture, eventually giving the name a decidedly Western American flavor.
As a given name, Keno absorbs this energy: it sounds bold, unadorned, and frontier-ready. Separately, Keno may function in some naming traditions as a variant of the Scandinavian name Keno or Keino, as well as connecting to African naming traditions — most famously through Kip Keino, the legendary Kenyan middle-distance runner who won gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in one of the Games' most celebrated upsets. In East African naming contexts, Keno-related names carry associations of swiftness, endurance, and competitive excellence.
As a given name in contemporary usage, Keno occupies an appealingly terse, masculine space — two syllables that end with authority. It rhymes with a small set of names (Reno, Zeno) but stands apart from all of them. Zeno, notably, was the ancient Greek founder of Stoic philosophy, giving the rhyme group an unexpected philosophical depth. Keno thus straddles gambling halls and Olympic tracks, frontiers and philosophy seminars — a name with more range than its five letters suggest.