What biblical name starts with K?

Korah is one, known from the revolt in Numbers 16 and the psalm headings that name his sons. Kohath, Kish, Kenan and Kemuel are also men named in the Bible, each mainly in a genealogy or a list of leaders.

Is Kenneth a Christian name?

Yes, through Saint Cainnech (Canice), who the Catholic Encyclopedia says "is known in Scotland as St. Kenneth." The same English spelling also renders Cináed, the Gaelic name of the 9th-century king Kenneth mac Alpin.

Who were the sons of Korah?

They were the descendants of the Levite Korah, and Numbers 26:11 says they did not die when the ground swallowed his household. The headings of Psalms 84 and 85 attribute those psalms to them, and Psalm 87 is headed "Of the Korahites."

Christian Boy Names Starting With K: Korah's Sons and the Gaelic Saints Behind Kevin and Kenneth

Korah is the K man with a whole chapter of his own: Numbers 16 tells his revolt, which ended when the ground opened beneath his followers.

His family outlived him. Numbers 26:11 records that "the sons of Korah did not die," and the headings of Psalms 84 and 85 attribute those psalms to them.

Kohath, Kish, Kenan and Kemuel are other K men in the Bible, each named mainly in a genealogy or a list of tribal leaders.

Most K names in Christian use arrived much later, through Irish saints. Kevin, Kieran and Kilian are English and continental spellings of the Gaelic names Caoimhín, Ciarán and Cillian, and Kenneth anglicizes Coinneach, the Scottish Gaelic form of Cainnech.

Kenneth needs one more step, because a single English spelling covers both a saint's name and a king's.

Quick Facts

K man with his own chapter: Korah, Numbers 16:1-33
Survived the revolt: The sons of Korah (Numbers 26:11)
Psalm headings naming them: Psalms 84, 85 and 87
Other biblical K men: Kohath, Kish, Kenan and Kemuel
Gaelic originals: Caoimhín (Kevin), Ciarán (Kieran), Cainnech (Kenneth), Cillian (Kilian)

Who was Korah, and why are psalms named for his sons?

Numbers 26:11 is the verse that keeps Korah's name in the Psalms: "Notwithstanding, the sons of Korah did not die." It turns the rebel of Numbers 16 into the ancestor named in psalm headings.

Numbers 16:1 introduces him as "Korah son of Izhar son of Kohath son of Levi," so he belonged to the tribe of Levi. With Dathan, Abiram and On, and 250 leaders of the congregation, he confronted Moses and Aaron with the claim that "all the congregation are holy, every one of them."

The challenge ends in Numbers 16:31-33. The ground splits open, and "everyone who belonged to Korah" goes down alive into Sheol with their households and goods.

Numbers 26 returns to the scene while it counts the tribes again, and after naming Dathan and Abiram it adds that Korah's sons lived. The text gives no reason they were spared; it records only that his line continued.

That surviving line is the one the Psalms remember. The headings of Psalms 84 and 85 attribute them to the sons of Korah, and Psalm 87 is headed "Of the Korahites."

Kish, Kohath and Kenan: three more K men in the Bible's family lines

Each of these three men appears in a family line, and the verse that names him also says whose son or father he was.

Kish: 1 Samuel 9:1-2 introduces "a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish," a man of wealth whose son was Saul. Paul still calls the king "Saul son of Kish" in Acts 13:21.
Kohath: Exodus 6:16-18 lists him with Gershon and Merari as the sons of Levi and gives his life as 133 years. His sons were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel, and Izhar was Korah's father, so Kohath was Korah's grandfather.
Kenan: Genesis 5:9-14 names him as the son of Enosh and the father of Mahalalel, and says he lived 910 years. The genealogy records nothing else about him.

Kish and Kohath are each remembered through a better-known descendant, Saul for Kish and Korah for Kohath. Kenan is a name in a list with no story attached.

Kemuel, an Ephraimite leader in Numbers 34

In Numbers 34:24 the leader for the Ephraimites is "Kemuel son of Shiphtan," so Kemuel is a man's name in the Bible. The Kemuel name page separates the biblical men from the later angel.

What were Kevin, Kieran, Kenneth and Kilian called in Gaelic?

Kevin and Kieran are anglicized forms of the Irish names Caoimhín and Ciarán, and Kenneth anglicizes Coinneach, the Scottish Gaelic form of Cainnech. Kilian is the German and Spanish form of Cillian, a 7th-century Irish saint who preached in Franconia and was martyred at Würzburg.

The Irish saints behind four K names
English name	Gaelic form	Meaning in Behind the Name	Saint's monastery or mission	Century
Kevin	Caoimhín, from Old Irish Cóemgein	"Beloved birth": cóem "dear, beloved, gentle" and gein "birth"	Monastery at Glendalough; patron saint of Dublin	6th
Kieran	Ciarán	Diminutive of Ciar	Saighir (Ciarán the Elder); Clonmacnoise (Ciarán the Younger)	6th
Kenneth	Cainnech (Scottish Gaelic Coinneach)	From cáin, "handsome, beautiful, good"	Abbey of Aghaboe in Ireland; Kil-Chainnech on Tiree and Iona in Scotland	6th (died 600)
Kilian	Cillian	Probably cell, "church," with a diminutive suffix	Mission in Franconia; martyred at Würzburg	7th

Kieran is the one name in the table that points to two saints. Ciarán the Elder founded the monastery at Saighir and Ciarán the Younger founded Clonmacnoise, so a family honoring a Saint Kieran can say which foundation it means.

Lists that gloss Kevin as "kind" or "gentle" keep only the first half of Cóemgein. Behind the Name gives the second element, gein, as "birth," which is why its full gloss is "beloved birth."

Behind the Name dates Kevin's spread beyond Ireland to the middle of the 20th century, some fourteen centuries after the saint's monastery at Glendalough.

Saint Kenneth and King Kenneth are two different Gaelic names

Behind the Name gives Kenneth as the anglicized form of two separate names, Coinneach and Cináed. Coinneach is the Scottish Gaelic form of Cainnech, the saint's name, while Cináed is the name of a king.

The saint is Cainnech, called Canice in English and, in Scotland, Saint Kenneth. The Catholic Encyclopedia says he was born in 515 or 516 at Glengiven, in what is now County Derry, and died at Aghaboe in 600.

In 544 he studied at Glasnevin under Saint Mobhi alongside Saint Kieran of Clonmacnoise, so two of the saints in the table above shared one school. A year earlier he had been at Clonard as a fellow pupil of Saint Columba.

He crossed to Scotland in 565, where a ruined church on Tiree and a burial ground on Iona both carry the name Kil-Chainnech. The same encyclopedia gives his feast as 11 October and reports a tradition that he founded a monastery at Kilkenny, where the cathedral bears his name.

The king is Kenneth mac Alpin, whose Gaelic name was Cináed; Behind the Name credits him with uniting the Scots and Picts in the 9th century. Walter Scott later carried Kenneth beyond Scotland by giving the name to the hero of his 1825 novel The Talisman.

"Handsome" is Behind the Name's meaning for Cainnech, the saint's name, so a Kenneth chosen for a Christian namesake honors Cainnech of Aghaboe and Iona rather than the king.