proprietary name of a brand of canvas sneakers, 1917, registered by United States Rubber Co., N.Y.
We wanted to call it Peds, but ... it came too close to ... other brand names. So we batted it around for awhile and decided on the hardest-sounding letter in the alphabet, K, and called it Keds, that was in 1916. [J.Healey, in R.L. Cohen, "Footwear Industry," x.93]