Jerome
Masculine · “sacred name”
Jerome is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 161,234 boys against 1,062 girls since 1880. See Jerome as a girl name
Jerome is a Greek name meaning sacred name, carried by the man who put the Bible into Latin and by the brother of an emperor who married a girl from Baltimore. The saint is usually painted with a lion at his feet, and the lion is not his — it belongs to a different saint entirely and arrived by a mix-up that nobody has ever bothered to undo.
How old is the name Jerome?
Jerome was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Jerome alive today was born around 1954, making them about 71 years old. About 95,000 people named Jerome are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jerome most popular?
Jerome peaked in 1938, reaching #93 nationally. Today it ranks #1256, 1,163 places below that high. See the whole 1938 chart.
Jerome appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From a Greek compound meaning sacred name to Jerome
The story of Jerome
The lion is a case of mistaken identity that has survived a thousand years of art history. The story of a monk who pulled a thorn from a lion's paw and was followed about by the grateful animal belongs to Saint Gerasimus, a Palestinian abbot whose name in Greek looks enough like Jerome's for a copyist to have confused them. By the Middle Ages the lion had transferred completely. Every painter who wanted to show the translator at his desk put the animal in the corner, and it is now impossible to identify him in a gallery without it — a piece of evidence attached to the wrong man and left there because it made a better picture.
Meaning
sacred name
The Greek compound is transparent: a word for holy and a word for a name. It was borne by the scholar who spent decades in Bethlehem producing the Latin translation that western Europe used for a thousand years, and who was by all accounts an extremely difficult man — his letters are full of quarrels. The name came into English through French, which wore the Greek down to two syllables and gave it the shape it has now.
How the name formed
- a Greek compound meaning sacred name
- the translator of the Latin Bible carries it
- a lion transfers to him from another saint
- French wears the name down to two syllables
- an American peak between the wars
Related forms: Jerome · Girolamo · Jeronimo · Hieronymos
Pronouncing Jerome
juh-ROHM
Two syllables with the stress at the back in English and French alike. The Italian and Spanish forms keep more of the Greek and are three or four syllables long.
Nicknames for Jerome
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19543,113 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #93reached in 1938
- Change vs 2022
- −12.7%158 in 2025, from 181
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.
Jerome in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jerome in French — same name
- Girolamo in Italian — same name
- Jeronimo in Spanish — same name
- Hieronymos in Greek — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, California, Texas.
Jeromes among us
people named Jerome are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 10,811 born in 2025 was named Jerome
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 Virgil test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jerome's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Virgil climbed just as high around 1907, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Virgil's path sketches the road Jerome is walking now.
Jerome 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 Jerome is headed
Jerome is easing off slowly — about 16% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Jerome beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jerome in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short in English while carrying a very long history.
- Jerry and Romy are available and belong to different generations entirely.
- The meaning is clear, dignified and easy to explain.
- It is closely associated with the middle of the last century in America and has not yet come back.
- Jerry is shared with Gerald, Gerard and Jeremy, so the short form gives nothing away.
- The saint's reputation for quarrelling is well documented and quite entertaining.
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Jerome
Masculine · #1256 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jeromes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 95,000 people named Jerome are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jerome in 2025?
- Jerome ranks #1256 among US boy names in 2025, with 158 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jerome?
- About 1 in every 10,811 US boys born in 2025 was named Jerome — 158 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jerome with classmates?
- Jerome will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jerome
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Malaki#1256 · Yohan#1256 · Aven#1256 · Pierre#1252 · Jordy#1260 · Monroe#1260 · Brecken#1252 · Emrys#1260
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jerome? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jerome and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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