At a Glance
- Meaning
- 'at the yates' -- a dialectal form of 'gates', i.e., one who lived or worked by the gates; a gatekeeper
- Origin
- Middle English (occupational surname, variant of Yates)
- Gender
- Boy
- Pronunciation
- YAYTS
Yeats is a Middle English (occupational surname, variant of Yates) boy's name meaning “'at the yates' -- a dialectal form of 'gates', i.e., one who lived or worked by the gates; a gatekeeper”. It appears in our list of 200+ Indie Boho Boy Names with Meanings.
Meaning & Origin of Yeats
Meaning: 'at the yates' -- a dialectal form of 'gates', i.e., one who lived or worked by the gates; a gatekeeper.
Origin: Middle English (occupational surname, variant of Yates).
A common claim: Means 'gate' or connects to yew trees Actually: The 'yew trees' connection is a folk/phonetic association (likely from 'Yeats' sounding like 'yew') -- the real derivation is 'yate', a dialect form of 'gate', making it an occupational/topographic surname for a gatekeeper, unrelated to yew trees.
Source: Wiktionary.
How to Pronounce Yeats
YAYTSIPA /jeɪts/
Popularity of Yeats
Yeats doesn’t appear in U.S. Social Security birth records, which include every name given to at least five babies in a year — so it’s rare in the U.S.
Lists That Include Yeats
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