Jannine
Feminine · “the Lord is gracious”
Jannine doubles a letter in a French name and the doubling changes nothing audible. English has a habit of borrowing the same French word several times over and keeping all the versions, and one of those sets is worth knowing.
How old is the name Jannine?
Jannine first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Jannine alive today was born around 1968, making them about 57 years old. About 600 people named Jannine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jannine most popular?
Jannine peaked in 1964, reaching #2195 nationally. See the whole 1964 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Iohanna to Jannine
The story of Jannine
English borrowed the French word gentil three separate times and kept all three results with different tones. The earliest arrival became gentle, which originally meant of good family and only later meant mild — the sense of birth survives in gentleman and in the gentry. The second wave gave genteel, borrowed again from a later French pronunciation, which meant elegant and stylish and has curdled over two centuries into something slightly ridiculous, suggesting a person performing a class they do not have. And jaunty is the same word a third time, borrowed in the seventeenth century when English ears rendered the French vowels differently again; it kept the sense of stylish and lost the class content entirely. Three words, one source, three quite different things to say about somebody.
Meaning
the Lord is gracious
A French feminine diminutive of Jean, which is the French form of John, which is a Hebrew sentence-name joining a form of the divine name to a verb about showing favor. The doubled n is an English spelling habit and appears in no French form.
How the name formed
- Iohanna
- Jeanne
- Janine
- Jannine
Related forms: Janine · Janine
Pronouncing Jannine
juh-NEEN
Two syllables with the stress at the back. The doubled n does not shorten the vowel before it, which it would in an ordinary English word, so the spelling is slightly misleading.
Nicknames for Jannine
Moderate
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
- 1946
- Most girls named
- 196430 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2195reached in 1964
- Change vs 2003
- −14.3%6 in 2005, from 7
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.
Jannine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Janine in French — same name
- Janine in Dutch — same name
Jannines among us
people named Jannine are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Jannine sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Back stress gives a two-syllable name a firm landing.
- Jan and Nina both detach and sound nothing like each other.
- The meaning is a full sentence and is documented all the way back.
- Janine, Jeanine and Jenine are all commoner and will be written for it.
- The doubled letter is silent, so the spelling must be given aloud every time.
- It reads as belonging firmly to one mid-century generation.
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Jannine
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Jannines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Jannine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jannine in 2025?
- Jannine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Jannine with classmates?
- Jannine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
Jennifer#586 · Jessica#665 · Janet#2778 · Julie#872 · Joyce#1071 · Joan#1085 · Julia#131 · Jean#2117
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jannine? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jannine and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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