Jesenia
Feminine
Jesenia is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 4,764 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Jesenia is one of the very few names whose author is known. It was created for a Mexican comic-strip serial in the 1960s by the writer Yolanda Vargas Dulché, for a heroine raised among Roma; the strip became a 1970 film and a 1971 telenovela, and the name entered the Spanish-speaking world from a standing start.
How old is the name Jesenia?
Jesenia first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Jesenia alive today was born around 1994, making them about 31 years old. About 4,700 people named Jesenia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jesenia most popular?
Jesenia peaked in 1987, reaching #897 nationally. Today it ranks #7133, 6,236 places below that high. See the whole 1987 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yesenia to Jesenia
Our story of Jesenia
Most names have no author. A handful do, and they are worth collecting, because they let you watch a name's entire life from the first day. Yesenia was written into a Mexican historieta in the 1960s, filmed in 1970, and serialised for television in 1971 — after which the name appears in birth registries across Mexico, Central America and the Spanish-speaking United States, having existed nowhere before. Its American peak in 1987 comes a full sixteen years after the telenovela, which is exactly the lag you would expect: the girls named in 1971 were not the audience, they were the audience's daughters, and the second wave is the mothers who had been children when it aired. The J spelling is the American branch of that story, made where Spanish and English orthography meet.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The name was invented for a character and has no prior existence in any language. Glosses circulating online — "flower", or an Arabic derivation — are not supported by any source and appear to be reverse-engineered after the fact. There is an unrelated Slavic word jesen, "autumn", which the spelling resembles by coincidence and which has no connection to the Mexican name.
How the name formed
- Yesenia
- Jesenia
Related forms: Yesenia · Yessenia
Pronouncing Jesenia
heh-SEH-nee-ah
Four syllables in Spanish with the stress on the second and the j as an H. English speakers say juh-SEE-nee-uh with an English J. Yesenia with a Y is said the same as the Spanish reading of Jesenia, which is the point of the two spellings.
Nicknames for Jesenia
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
- 1971
- Most girls named
- 1990195 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #897reached in 1987
- Change vs 2024
- +15.4%15 in 2025, from 13
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.
Jesenia in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yesenia in Spanish — spelling variant
- Yessenia in Spanish — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida, Texas, California.
Jesenias among us
people named Jesenia are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 107,151 born in 2025 was named Jesenia
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 Felicitas test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jesenia's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Felicitas climbed just as high around 1928, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Felicitas's path sketches the road Jesenia is walking now.
Jesenia 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
Jesenia beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jesenia in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It has a documented author and a documented first appearance, which almost no name does.
- It is unmistakably Latin American without being a saint's name or a Spanish word.
- The four-syllable shape is unusually musical.
- The initial letter is read two entirely different ways.
- Yesenia, Yessenia, Jesenia and Jessenia all coexist in the records.
- It has no meaning, and the meanings offered online are invented.
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What they receive
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Jesenia
Feminine · #7133 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jesenias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,700 people named Jesenia are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jesenia in 2025?
- Jesenia ranks #7133 among US girl names in 2025, with 15 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jesenia?
- About 1 in every 107,151 US girls born in 2025 was named Jesenia — 15 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jesenia with classmates?
- Jesenia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jesenia
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 Jesenia? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jesenia and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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