Jessamine
Feminine · “Persian yasmin”
The Victorians invented the flower name. Before about 1850 almost no English girl was called Rose, Lily, Violet, Daisy, Ivy, Hazel or Myrtle; within fifty years all of them were common. It is the first time English used ordinary nouns as women's names on any scale.
How old is the name Jessamine?
Jessamine first appears in US birth records in 1889 — 136 years ago. The typical Jessamine alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 500 people named Jessamine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jessamine most popular?
Jessamine peaked in 1891, reaching #1006 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 8,451 places below that high. See the whole 1891 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From yasmin to Jessamine
The story of Jessamine
The wave is unusually well defined. English women's names before the nineteenth century were overwhelmingly biblical, Germanic or Norman, and the handful of nature words in use, like Pearl and Ruby, were rare. From the 1840s the picture changes fast: Rose, Lily, Violet, Daisy, Ivy, Hazel, Myrtle, Iris, Olive, Fern, Marigold, Primrose, Jessamine and Poppy all enter general use within two generations, and by 1900 several are in the top hundred on both sides of the Atlantic. The causes usually offered are the popularity of the language of flowers, cheap illustrated botany, and the general Victorian appetite for the natural and the sentimental. The wave receded in the mid-twentieth century and returned after 1990, which is why Lily, Violet and Ivy are common again now and Myrtle and Jessamine are not.
Meaning
Persian yasmin, the jasmine flower
Jessamine is the older English form of jasmine, from Persian yasmin through Arabic and French. It was the standard English spelling of the plant from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, and jasmine displaced it later. As a given name it belongs to the Victorian flower-name fashion. The American peak is 1891.
How the name formed
- yasmin
- jessamine
- Jessamine
Related forms: Jasmine · Jessamy
Pronouncing Jessamine
JES-uh-min
Three syllables, stress on the first. Jasmine is two or three depending on the speaker; Jessamine is always three.
Nicknames for Jessamine
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
- 1889
- Most girls named
- 199717 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1006reached in 1891
- Change vs 2023
- −9.1%10 in 2025, from 11
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.
Jessamine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jasmine in English — related form
- Jessamy in English — spelling variant
Jessamines among us
people named Jessamine are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Jessamine
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Jessamine 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
Jessamine beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jessamine in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Jess is available as a short form and is a familiar name.
- It is the historically older English form of the word.
- Three syllables with firm first-syllable stress.
- Jasmine is now the standard form of the word.
- Nine letters is a lot to spell out.
- The 1891 peak places it firmly in the Victorian period.
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What they receive
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Jessamine
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jessamines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Jessamine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jessamine in 2025?
- Jessamine ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jessamine?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Jessamine — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jessamine with classmates?
- Jessamine will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jessamine
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jessamine? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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