Jean
Feminine · “God is gracious”
Jean is given to both — 458,436 girls and 25,039 boys since 1880. See Jean as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Jean is the Scottish form of Jeanne, and for four centuries it was one of the two or three commonest women's names in Scotland — the everyday feminine of John, which was the everyday name for everybody's son.
How old is the name Jean?
Jean was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Jean alive today was born around 1936, making them about 89 years old. About 191,000 people named Jean are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jean most popular?
Jean peaked in 1926, reaching #12 nationally. Today it ranks #2117, 2,105 places below that high. See the whole 1926 chart.
Where it comes from
From Yohanan to Jean
The story of Jean
The Auld Alliance kept French and Scottish naming in close contact for centuries, and Scotland took Jeanne as Jean and Jehanne as Janet — both of them staples of the parish registers from the sixteenth century onward. Burns wrote to a Jean and married one. The name crossed to America with Scottish emigration and rose sharply in the twentieth century, reaching the top twenty by the 1920s.
Meaning
God is gracious
From the Hebrew Yohanan, 'the Lord is gracious', through the Latin Johannes and the French Jean and Jeanne. Scotland took the French feminine directly, which is why the Scottish woman's name looks identical to the French man's name and is said quite differently.
How the name formed
- Yohanan
- Johannes
- Jeanne
- Jean
Related forms: Jeanne · Janet · Joan · Giovanna
Pronouncing Jean
JEEN
One syllable. The identical French spelling is a man's name said ZHAHN, which is a different sound entirely.
Nicknames for Jean
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 192712,512 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #12reached in 1926
- Change vs 2022
- +20.5%88 in 2025, from 73
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.
Jean in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jeanne in French — related form
- Janet in Scottish — related form
- Joan in English — related form
- Giovanna in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Jeans among us
people named Jean are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 18,264 born in 2025 was named Jean
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 Gladys test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jean's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Gladys climbed just as high around 1901, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Gladys's path sketches the road Jean is walking now.
Jean 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
Where Jean is headed
Jean should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Jean beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jean in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It sits inside the largest name family in Europe, with cousins in every language.
- One syllable that pairs cleanly with almost any surname and works beautifully as a middle name.
- It has an unbroken four-century Scottish record.
- The identical French spelling is masculine, which surprises people abroad.
- It is a homophone of the fabric and of Gene, the masculine short form of Eugene.
- It is period-coded to the first half of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Jean
Feminine · #2117 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jeans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 191,000 people named Jean are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jean in 2025?
- Jean ranks #2117 among US girl names in 2025, with 88 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jean?
- About 1 in every 18,264 US girls born in 2025 was named Jean — 88 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jean with classmates?
- Jean will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jean
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Anylah#2117 · Nahomy#2117 · Taelynn#2117 · Krystal#2117 · Aoife#2117 · Chany#2117 · Adelia#2117 · Avigail#2117
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jean? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jean and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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