The name appears to come from a
Brythonic word meaning "wood" (
cf. Welsh ), but it may also be related to the
Pictish territorial division in this area, which was known as
Cé.
The Chronicles of Keith, compiled in the 19th century, provide an unusually comprehensive view of the area's history. According to them Keith was originally known as "Kethmalruff", a dedication to
Saint Maol Rubha (d. 722), also Latinised as "St Rufus". This dedication to a
Celtic Church saint from
Bangor Abbey may imply that the parish has
Hiberno-Scottish missionary origins, possibly by monks from St Maol Ruba's monastic foundation of
Applecross Abbey. The first parish church at Keith (still marked by an ancient graveyard, though the
parish church was rebuilt on another site in the early nineteenth century), though no archaeological evidence for this has been identified. During the
Jacobite rising of 1745, the
Jacobite Army won a skirmish at Keith on 21 March 1746. A Jacobite force under Major Nicholas Glasgow and Captain Robert Stewart surprised and defeated a Government force, killing over 20 of them. This victory at Keith is a reminder that the Jacobites were continuing to take the initiative in parts of northern Scotland until the
Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746. The language spoken indigenously round Keith is
Doric, which superseded Scottish Gaelic (see language section at
Moray). The town is home of psych/folk/country band, the Carousels, whose track 'Marianne' was used on an advertising campaign for
Irn-Bru. The first Keith Golf Club (now defunct) was founded in 1901. The
Second World War saw the demise of the club and the course reverted to farmland. The
Union Street drill hall was completed in around 1908. ==Climate==