Jessica
Masculine · “God beholds”
Jessica is given to girls far more often — 1,050,729 girls against 3,578 boys since 1880. See Jessica as a girl name
Jessica is one of the very few American peaks that Britain shared. Most names that reach the top of the American lists stay there and nowhere else; this one climbed to the same height in England, Wales and Scotland at almost the same time, which is rare enough to be worth saying.
How old is the name Jessica?
Jessica first appears in US birth records in 1963 — 62 years ago. The typical Jessica alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 3,400 people named Jessica are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jessica most popular?
Jessica peaked in 1985, reaching #578 nationally. See the whole 1985 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Iscah to Jessica
The story of Jessica
Something else is unusual about it. A name that reaches this size in America almost always spawns a family of respellings — Britney and Brittny, Kaitlyn and Katelyn, Mikayla and Michaela — and this one barely did. Jesica, Jessika and Jesika all exist in the record and none of them ever amounted to anything; the standard spelling absorbed nearly the whole of the name's enormous run. The likeliest reason is that it comes from a printed source rather than a spoken one, so parents met it on a page with its spelling already fixed, and there was nothing for the ear to reinterpret.
Meaningscholars disagree
God beholds
The name is generally traced to a Hebrew original meaning that God sees or looks out, though the chain runs through a sixteenth-century English rendering of the Hebrew and is not secure at every link.
How the name formed
- Iscah
- Jessica
Related forms: Gessica · Yessica · Yiskah
Pronouncing Jessica
JESS-ik-uh
Three syllables with the weight at the front. Said essentially the same way across the English-speaking world; Italian and Spanish soften the opening consonant.
Nicknames for Jessica
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
- 1963
- Most boys named
- 1989252 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #578reached in 1985
- Change vs 2011
- −44.4%5 in 2016, from 9
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.
Jessica in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Gessica in Italian — spelling variant
- Yessica in Spanish — spelling variant
- Yiskah in Hebrew — related form
Jessicas among us
people named Jessica 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
Jessica 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
- Everyone can spell it and say it on first hearing, which is not true of most names its size.
- Jess and Jessie are established short forms with different registers.
- It works in Britain, Ireland, Australia and North America without any adjustment.
- The spelling is stable, so a Jessica rarely has to correct anyone.
- It is one of the most generation-marked names in the language and will place a person in time immediately.
- The spelling is recorded for a small number of boys, though it reads overwhelmingly as a girl's name.
- Its meaning is a reconstruction rather than a documented reading, and honest sources hedge it.
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What they receive
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Jessica
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Jessicas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,400 people named Jessica are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jessica in 2025?
- Jessica is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Jessica with classmates?
- Jessica 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 Jessica? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jessica and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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