Jessee
Masculine
Jessee is given to both — 1,645 boys and 313 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Jessee is one of the oldest spellings in the American record rather than one of the newest, which is worth saying because a name ending in a double e looks modern to anybody who has grown up with recent respellings. It was on certificates before the turn of the twentieth century. The name underneath belongs to David's father, and to one of the most consequential pictures in medieval art.
How old is the name Jessee?
Jessee was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Jessee alive today was born around 1985, making them about 40 years old. About 1,200 people named Jessee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jessee most popular?
Jessee peaked in 1880, reaching #809 nationally. See the whole 1880 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A short Hebrew name of unknown meaning to Jessee
The story of Jessee
A verse in Isaiah about a shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse gave medieval artists an image, and the image became a diagram. They drew Jesse asleep on his back with a tree growing out of his side, the kings of Judah arranged along the branches and Christ at the top, and they put it in stained glass and manuscript pages all over Europe. It is the ancestor of the family tree as a visual form: the convention of drawing descent as a branching plant, with the founder at the root, comes out of that iconography rather than out of any earlier practice. Nobody diagrammed a genealogy that way before. The double-e spelling of the name has nothing to do with any of that; it is simply how a fair number of nineteenth-century American clerks and families chose to write a sound English has four ways of spelling.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Hebrew name is short and its meaning has never been established. Readings such as gift or God exists are proposed in reference works and none of them can be demonstrated; the name appears in the text without explanation, as many of the oldest Hebrew names do. That is a more honest answer than the confident glosses, and it puts this name in the same position as a good many others of comparable age.
How the name formed
- A short Hebrew name of unknown meaning
- The tree of Jesse in medieval glass and manuscripts
- Jesse in English use after the Reformation
- Jessee on American certificates from the earliest records
Related forms: Yishai · Isai · Iesse
Pronouncing Jessee
JESS-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, identical to Jesse in speech. The doubled e at the end is one of four ways English writes this sound, and it happens to be the one that looks most modern despite being among the oldest in American use.
Nicknames for Jessee
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
- 199150 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #809reached in 1880
- Change vs 2020
- +16.7%7 in 2022, 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.
Jessee in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yishai in Hebrew — same name
- Isai in Spanish — related form
- Iesse in Italian — related form
Jessees among us
people named Jessee 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
Jessee 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
- The sound is universally known, so the name is never mispronounced whatever the spelling does.
- It works on the register for either child, which the family can treat as a feature.
- The spelling is genuinely old rather than invented, which is worth knowing when somebody assumes otherwise.
- Jesse is the spelling in every reference book, and this one will be corrected into it constantly.
- The name carries no meaning that can be given, and the confident glosses in print are guesses.
- It reads as a modern respelling to most people, which is precisely backwards.
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Jessee
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Jessees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Jessee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jessee in 2025?
- Jessee is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Jessee with classmates?
- Jessee 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 Jessee? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jessee and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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