Jameson
Feminine · “son of James”
Jameson is given to boys far more often — 61,883 boys against 1,208 girls since 1880. See Jameson as a boy name
Jameson is a patronymic surname — the son of James — that arrived on the American girls' list in the 2010s, following the path Madison, Addison and Emerson had already opened. Its rise on girls is recent and steep, and it sits at the point where a whiskey label, a Scottish surname and a two-thousand-year-old Hebrew name all meet in one spelling.
How old is the name Jameson?
Jameson first appears in US birth records in 1981 — 44 years ago. The typical Jameson alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 1,200 people named Jameson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jameson most popular?
Jameson peaked in 2017, reaching #2487 nationally. Today it ranks #5722, 3,235 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yaaqov to Jameson
The story of Jameson
Jameson and Jamieson are Scottish and northern English surnames, recorded from the fourteenth century, formed the same way as Jackson, Wilson and Harrison. Like most such surnames they crossed to America and stayed surnames for three centuries. The shift to given names is a twentieth-century American habit that accelerated sharply after 1990, and the -son endings were among the last to convert: Jameson entered the boys' top thousand in the 1990s and reached the girls' list two decades later, carried by the same taste that had already made Addison and Emerson girls' names.
Meaning
son of James
The surname is straightforwardly patronymic. James itself has a long documented descent: Hebrew Yaaqov, through Greek Iakobos and Latin Iacobus, into a Late Latin variant Iacomus that produced the m in French Jacques and English James. The traditional reading of Yaaqov is 'supplanter' or 'heel-holder', from the story of Jacob and Esau, though many scholars treat that as an explanation attached later to a name that may simply have meant 'may God protect'.
How the name formed
- Yaaqov
- Iacomus
- James
- Jameson
Related forms: Jamieson · Jamison · Jacques · Jaime
Pronouncing Jameson
JAY-muh-sun
Three syllables, stress on the first. The middle vowel is reduced almost to nothing, which is why the Jamison spelling exists and sounds identical.
Nicknames for Jameson
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1981
- Most girls named
- 201772 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2487reached in 2017
- Change vs 2024
- −8.7%21 in 2025, from 23
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Jameson in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jamieson in Scottish — spelling variant
- Jamison in English — spelling variant
- Jacques in French — related form
- Jaime in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Georgia.
Jamesons among us
people named Jameson are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was named Jameson
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Evelia test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jameson's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Evelia climbed just as high around 1980, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Evelia's path sketches the road Jameson is walking now.
Jameson sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Jameson beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jameson in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Jamie is a ready-made short form that is already comfortable on a girl.
- The surname is genuinely old and documented, so the name is not a coinage.
- It sits in a well-established American pattern, which means it reads as familiar rather than invented.
- It is also a widely advertised Irish whiskey, and adults will make the connection.
- The literal meaning is 'son of', which some families find awkward on a daughter.
- It stays much more common on boys, so forms and first impressions will often assume male.
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What they receive
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Jameson
Feminine · #5722 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jamesons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Jameson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jameson in 2025?
- Jameson ranks #5722 among US girl names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jameson?
- About 1 in every 76,537 US girls born in 2025 was named Jameson — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jameson with classmates?
- Jameson will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jameson
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rosina#5722 · Delores#5722 · Vaughn#5722 · Roseline#5722 · Loyal#5722 · Missy#5722 · Danitza#5722 · Margret#5722
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jameson? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jameson and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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