Jeanie
Feminine · “God is gracious”
Jeanie was near the American top four hundred in the late 1940s, and it had been in the culture for a century before that: Stephen Foster's I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair was published in 1854 and never stopped being sung. Behind it stands Jean, the Scottish form of Jane, and behind that one of the most widely borne names in the world.
How old is the name Jeanie?
Jeanie first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Jeanie alive today was born around 1958, making them about 67 years old. About 13,000 people named Jeanie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jeanie most popular?
Jeanie peaked in 1949, reaching #380 nationally. Today it ranks #5722, 5,342 places below that high. See the whole 1949 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yohanan to Jeanie
The story of Jeanie
Jean was the ordinary Scottish form of Jane from the medieval period onwards, and Scots produced Jeanie from it in the same way it produced Annie, Maggie and Effie. Robert Burns used the form; Stephen Foster used it in 1854 in a song written for his estranged wife Jane, and that song made Jeanie familiar to every American parlour with a piano. American use rose through the first half of the twentieth century and peaked around 1949. The 1965 television series I Dream of Jeannie, spelled with two n's, is a separate and later thing, though it has attached itself to the sound in most people's memory.
Meaning
God is gracious
The chain is long but every link is documented. Hebrew Yohanan, 'Yahweh is gracious', gives Greek Ioannes and Latin Iohannes; the feminine Iohanna produces Old French Jehanne, which becomes English Jane and Scottish Jean. Jeanie is the Scots diminutive of Jean, formed with the -ie ending that Scots uses freely. The meaning travels unchanged the whole way, which is unusual over that distance.
How the name formed
- Yohanan
- Iohanna
- Jean
- Jeanie
Related forms: Jean · Jane · Jeanne · Giovanna · Juana
Pronouncing Jeanie
JEE-nee
Two syllables, stress on the first, with a long e in both. Identical to Jeannie and to Genie, which is the source of a good deal of confusion given the television series.
Nicknames for Jeanie
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 1958462 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #380reached in 1949
- Change vs 2022
- +10.5%21 in 2025, from 19
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.
Jeanie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jean in Scottish — related form
- Jane in English — related form
- Jeanne in French — related form
- Giovanna in Italian — related form
- Juana in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Jeanies among us
people named Jeanie are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 76,537 born in 2025 was named Jeanie
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jeanie
- #5722
- Jeanie on the 2025 chart
- #923
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jeanie went to 21 girls in 2025, but Jeannie is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 37, which makes it the 923rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 4,799 places above the chart.
- Jeanie21
- Jeannie16
About 1 girl in 43,440 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 76,537 for Jeanie itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Gilda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jeanie's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Gilda climbed just as high around 1927, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Gilda's path sketches the road Jeanie is walking now.
Jeanie 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
Jeanie beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jeanie in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is settled and can be given in three words.
- It has a long documented Scottish history and a nineteenth-century song attached to it.
- Jean is available as a plainer, more formal fallback.
- It sounds exactly like genie, and the association is unavoidable in American English.
- Jeanie, Jeannie, Jeanne and Genie all circulate and are routinely mixed up.
- Its statistical shape is firmly mid-century, which places a bearer's generation.
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What they receive
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Jeanie
Feminine · #5722 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jeanies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 13,000 people named Jeanie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jeanie?
- Jeanie is the most-used spelling in US records — 21 of the 37 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Jeannie.
- How popular is the name Jeanie in 2025?
- Jeanie ranks #5722 among US girl names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jeanie?
- About 1 in every 76,537 US girls born in 2025 was named Jeanie — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jeanie with classmates?
- Jeanie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jeanie
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 Jeanie? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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