Jeralyn
Feminine · “ruling with the spear”
Geraldine was invented in a poem. An English earl, writing sonnets in the 1530s, needed a name for a young woman he was praising and built one from her surname — she was a FitzGerald, and he called her the fair Geraldine. It caught on, and every Geraldine since is standing on that one piece of Tudor courtliness. Jeralyn is that name's American descendant with a different ending.
How old is the name Jeralyn?
Jeralyn first appears in US birth records in 1930 — 95 years ago. The typical Jeralyn alive today was born around 1969, making them about 56 years old. About 1,100 people named Jeralyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jeralyn most popular?
Jeralyn peaked in 1942, reaching #1860 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 11,348 places below that high. See the whole 1942 chart.
Where it comes from
From Gerald to Jeralyn
The story of Jeralyn
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was one of the men who brought the sonnet into English, and his poem praising Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald gave the language a new name — one of very few whose date of invention can be pinned to within a few years. Geraldine became genuinely popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. American naming then did what it does: it kept the front and swapped the ending, producing Jeralyn, Geralyn, Jerilyn and Geraldene. This spelling appears from the 1930s and belongs to that generation.
Meaning
ruling with the spear
The meaning belongs to Gerald, from the Germanic ger, a spear, and wald, rule. Geraldine is the feminine coined from it, and Jeralyn substitutes the -lyn ending that American naming attaches to almost anything. That ending carries no meaning of its own.
How the name formed
- Gerald
- Geraldine
- Jeralyn
Related forms: Gearóidín · Géraldine
Pronouncing Jeralyn
JER-uh-lin
Three syllables, stress on the first, the last two light. Some families put the weight at the back, jer-uh-LIN; the front-stress version is much the commoner.
Nicknames for Jeralyn
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
- 1930
- Most girls named
- 196227 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1860reached in 1942
- Change vs 2018
- −25.0%6 in 2025, from 8
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.
Jeralyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gearóidín in Irish — related form
- Géraldine in French — related form
Jeralyns among us
people named Jeralyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Jeralyn
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 Mabry test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jeralyn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mabry climbed just as high around 1908, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mabry's path sketches the road Jeralyn is walking now.
Jeralyn 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
Jeralyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jeralyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has an unusually precise origin — a poem, a decade and a named author.
- Jerri and Lyn are both usable and belong to different registers.
- Seven letters, three syllables, and nothing difficult in the spelling.
- Geralyn, Jerilyn and Jeralynn all compete, so the spelling has to be dictated.
- It belongs to a mid-century American generation and reads that way.
- The stress is unsettled, so the name arrives two ways.
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What they receive
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Jeralyn
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jeralyns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Jeralyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jeralyn in 2025?
- Jeralyn ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jeralyn?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Jeralyn — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jeralyn with classmates?
- Jeralyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jeralyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jeralyn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jeralyn and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
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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