A feminine Indian form related to Keshava, a name of Krishna meaning long-haired or beautiful-haired.
Keshavi is the feminine form of Keshava, one of the thousand names of Vishnu enumerated in the Vishnu Sahasranama, a Sanskrit hymn composed within the Mahabharata and recited in Hindu homes and temples every day for over two thousand years. The root is Sanskrit kesha (केश), meaning 'hair' — and Keshava refers to Krishna's famously beautiful, abundant hair, the dark curls that cascade in painting and sculpture as a mark of his divine beauty and sensuousness. The name thus belongs simultaneously to devotional and aesthetic registers: to name a daughter Keshavi is to invoke both the divine and the beautiful.
Krishna is addressed as Keshava in some of the most celebrated passages of the Bhagavad Gita, particularly in moments when Arjuna seeks guidance at the threshold of the great battle. The name therefore carries philosophical weight alongside its visual beauty — it is the name used between the devotee and the god at the moment of deepest inquiry. Across the Vaishnava traditions of South India, the name has been sung in bhajans and encoded in temple inscriptions for centuries.
In contemporary usage, Keshavi appears predominantly among Hindu families in India, particularly in Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, and increasingly in diaspora communities in the United States, UK, and Australia. It benefits from a phonological sweetness — the three syllables roll easily in South Asian languages and are broadly pronounceable internationally — while maintaining an unambiguously Sanskrit identity that many families are actively choosing to preserve and celebrate.