Jenifer
Feminine · “white phantom”
Jenifer is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 25,551 girls against 22 boys since 1880.
Jenifer is the Cornish form of Guinevere, and the Welsh original means white phantom — a name that arrived in modern English use looking entirely ordinary and carrying something quite strange underneath.
How old is the name Jenifer?
Jenifer first appears in US birth records in 1933 — 92 years ago. The typical Jenifer alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 24,000 people named Jenifer are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jenifer most popular?
Jenifer peaked in 1973, reaching #271 nationally. Today it ranks #7133, 6,862 places below that high. See the whole 1973 chart.
Where it comes from
From Gwenhwyfar to Jenifer
The story of Jenifer
Gwenhwyfar is Arthur's queen in the Welsh material, and French romance made her Guenievre and then Guinevere. Cornwall kept a form of the Welsh name as Jenifer, which was a purely local name until the twentieth century — when it spread, first through a 1934 stage play, and then explosively. The single-n spelling is the older Cornish one; Jennifer with two overtook it, and Jenifer peaked in America in the mid-1970s.
Meaning
white phantom, fair spirit
From the Welsh Gwenhwyfar — gwen, 'white' or 'blessed', and hwyfar, generally read as 'phantom' or 'smooth one'. The gwen element is everywhere in Welsh names; the second is rarer and its supernatural sense is the standard reading.
How the name formed
- Gwenhwyfar
- Guinevere
- Jenifer
Related forms: Gwenhwyfar · Jennifer · Guenièvre
Pronouncing Jenifer
JEN-ih-fur
Three syllables, stress on the first. Jenifer and Jennifer are said identically; the doubled n changes nothing.
Nicknames for Jenifer
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
- 1933
- Most girls named
- 1974923 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #271reached in 1973
- Change vs 2023
- +25.0%15 in 2025, from 12
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.
Jenifer in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gwenhwyfar in Welsh — related form
- Jennifer in English — spelling variant
- Guenièvre in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Jenifers among us
people named Jenifer are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was named Jenifer
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jenifer
- #7133
- Jenifer on the 2025 chart
- #507
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jenifer went to 15 girls in 2025, but Jennifer and Jennyfer are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 522, which makes it the 507th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,626 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,079 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 107,151 for Jenifer 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 Mavis test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jenifer's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mavis climbed just as high around 1924, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mavis's path sketches the road Jenifer is walking now.
Jenifer 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
Jenifer beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jenifer 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 genuinely striking, and the Arthurian connection is documented rather than decorative.
- The single-n spelling is the older and more authentically Cornish form.
- Jen is a short form with an entirely independent modern life.
- Jennifer is overwhelmingly the standard spelling and this one reads as a misspelling to most people.
- It is closely dated to the 1970s in American records.
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Jenifer
Feminine · #7133 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jenifers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 24,000 people named Jenifer are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jenifer?
- Jenifer is one of 3 recorded spellings. Jennifer is the more common one — 501 births in 2025 against 15 for Jenifer.
- How popular is the name Jenifer in 2025?
- Jenifer ranks #7133 among US girl names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jenifer?
- About 1 in every 107,151 US girls born in 2025 was named Jenifer — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jenifer with classmates?
- Jenifer will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jenifer
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Pennie#7133 · Zina#7133 · Elzie#7133 · Rosabel#7133 · Adelene#7133 · Cruz#7133 · Kansas#7133 · Ione#7133
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jenifer? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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