Maybe I shouldn't have said "keds" was Gaelic. I don't know if it was Welsh or Scottish shepherds who used the term.

I found an article about how the name Keds was chosen:
SHEEP AND GOATS—GENERAL
Sheep and goats are hosts to several important arthropod
pests. Failure to control these pests may result in
loss of wool, reduced weight gains, reduced milk production,
and even death in young lambs. An understanding
of the life history and habits of these pests is
essential for effective control.
The most common and abundant external parasite
of sheep is the sheep ked or sheep tick. Other pests
of concern include lice, scab mites, sheep nose bot flies,
fleece worms, stable flies, and house flies.

How the name was chosen:
They wanted to call the shoe they were about to produce a Ped, but another company was already using that term. After three years of vigorous thought, they narrowed the choice of a name down to two — Ved or Ked. It boggles the mind, doesn't it? They ultimately decided on Ked because (again as the legend goes) they felt K was the strongest letter in the alphabet. So Keds were born. The rest, as the books love to say, is history.

I had suspected an employee with warped sense of humor had
chosen it.