Jennifer
Masculine · “white phantom”
Jennifer is given to girls far more often — 1,471,703 girls against 4,837 boys since 1880. See Jennifer as a girl 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 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Jennifer alive today was born around 1979, making them about 46 years old. About 4,500 people named Jennifer are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jennifer most popular?
Jennifer peaked in 1973, reaching #529 nationally. See the whole 1973 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
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
- 1946
- Most boys named
- 1975225 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #529reached in 1973
- Change vs 2014
- 0.0%6 in 2016, from 6
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
Jennifers among us
people named Jennifer 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
Jennifer 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
- 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.
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Jennifer
Masculine
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 4,500 people named Jennifer are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jennifer in 2025?
- Jennifer is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Jennifer with classmates?
- Jennifer will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
James#6 · John#23 · Joseph#29 · Joshua#66 · Jason#165 · Jacob#43 · Jeffrey#552 · Jonathan#89
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jennifer? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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