An Anglo-Norman name from Old English cyta, ‘kite’, first found in County Wexford — one of the earliest Norman families to fully Gaelicise.
The Keating certificate.
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Norman Origin · Fully Gaelicised in South Leinster
Keating traces to the Old English personal name Cyting, built on cyta, ‘kite’, a bird of prey — likely an early nickname for someone fierce or rapacious. Brought to Ireland by the Anglo-Normans in the late twelfth century, the family settled in County Wexford and became one of the earliest Norman families to fully Gaelicise, taking the form Céitinn and later spreading into County Tipperary and the rest of Munster. A separate, indigenous family, Ó Céatfhadha, occasionally took the Keating name too.
A bird-of-prey nickname that crossed the Irish Sea with the Normans and, within a generation or two, became as thoroughly Irish as the names it settled among.
Irish form: Céitinn
