Jennifer
Feminine · “white phantom”
Jennifer is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 1,471,703 girls against 4,837 boys since 1880. See Jennifer as a boy name
Jennifer was almost unused before one play. It is the Cornish form of Guinevere and it stayed in Cornwall, a local name in a small county, until a playwright picked it up at the start of the twentieth century — after which it went from nothing to the most-given name in America inside sixty years.
How old is the name Jennifer?
Jennifer first appears in US birth records in 1919 — 106 years ago. The typical Jennifer alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 1,402,000 people named Jennifer are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jennifer most popular?
Jennifer peaked in 1970, reaching #1 nationally. Today it ranks #586, 585 places below that high. See the whole 1970 chart.
Where it comes from
From Gwenhwyfar to Jennifer
The story of Jennifer
Guinevere was effectively unusable as a name for centuries because of what the Arthurian stories say about her. Cornwall kept a form of it going quietly. George Bernard Shaw gave the name to a character in The Doctor's Dilemma in nineteen-oh-six, and that is the point at which it starts appearing outside Cornwall in the records. What followed is one of the steepest rises any name has ever had: from outside the American top thousand to number one, and then a decline just as steep. Very few names have a documented starting gun like that.
Meaningscholars disagree
white phantom; fair one
Welsh Gwenhwyfar joins gwen — white, fair or blessed — with a second element usually read as a phantom or smooth spirit, so a white apparition. The reading is traditional and not fully secure. Cornish kept the name as Jenifer while Welsh let it fall out of use, and Jennifer descends from that Cornish survival rather than directly from the Welsh.
How the name formed
- Gwenhwyfar
- Jenifer
- Jennifer
Related forms: Gwenhwyfar · Jenifer · Yenifer
Pronouncing Jennifer
JEN-uh-fur
JEN-uh-fur, three syllables, stress at the front, the middle reduced. The Welsh Gwenhwyfar is four syllables and shares almost no sounds with it; the Cornish form is the bridge between them.
Nicknames for Jennifer
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
- 1919
- Most girls named
- 197362,448 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1reached in 1970
- Change vs 2023
- −14.5%501 in 2025, from 586
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.
Jennifer in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gwenhwyfar in Welsh — related form
- Jenifer in Cornish — same name
- Yenifer in Spanish — transliteration
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Jennifers among us
people named Jennifer are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,208 born in 2025 was named Jennifer
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 Linda test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jennifer's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Linda climbed just as high around 1947, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Linda's path sketches the road Jennifer is walking now.
Jennifer 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 Jennifer is headed
Jennifer should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Jennifer beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jennifer in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It descends from a genuinely ancient Welsh name with a documented literary figure behind it.
- Jen and Jenny are both complete short forms in different registers.
- The spelling is completely settled, which a name of this size very rarely manages.
- The rise-and-fall shape of its history is unusually well documented and worth knowing.
- An enormous number of people carry it, and a Jennifer of a certain age will almost never be the only one in a room.
- It is very strongly tied to one American generation and dates a person about as precisely as a name can.
- Jen arrives immediately and the full name is rarely used.
- This spelling is recorded for boys too, though so rarely that a boy named Jennifer will be read as a girl on every form.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Jennifer
Feminine · #586 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jennifers are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,402,000 people named Jennifer are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jennifer in 2025?
- Jennifer ranks #586 among US girl names in 2025, with 501 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jennifer?
- About 1 in every 3,208 US girls born in 2025 was named Jennifer — 501 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jennifer with classmates?
- Jennifer will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jennifer
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alia#587 · Mara#587 · Chaya#587 · Lylah#584 · Jordan#584 · Noemi#583 · Reina#582 · Marigold#590
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jennifer? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jennifer and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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