Jinny
Feminine · “God is gracious”
Jinny is the northern spelling of Jenny, the one Scots and the north of England have long written, and it carries a piece of folklore that the commoner spelling does not. On the Isle of Man, children go around the doors on the last night of October with carved turnips, singing a song about Jinny the Witch.
How old is the name Jinny?
Jinny first appears in US birth records in 1940 — 85 years ago. The typical Jinny alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 700 people named Jinny are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jinny most popular?
Jinny peaked in 1948, reaching #2701 nationally. See the whole 1948 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Johanna to Jinny
The story of Jinny
The festival is called Hop-tu-Naa, and it is the island's own end-of-October night, older than the American Halloween now standing next to it. The Jinny of the song is generally identified with a woman tried for witchcraft on the island in the early eighteenth century, and the tune has been passed down by children ever since, which is a more reliable form of transmission than most. There is a second thing worth knowing about that island. Manx, the language the song began in, lost its last native speaker within living memory and was declared dead. It has since been brought back as a school subject and there are children on the island being raised in it again. The song outlived the language, and then the language caught up.
Meaning
God is gracious
Jinny follows Jenny, which is a pet form of Janet and Jane rather than of Jennifer. All of them go back through Johanna to a Hebrew name meaning that God is gracious, and the reading is not disputed.
How the name formed
- Johanna
- Jane
- Janet
- Jenny
- Jinny
Pronouncing Jinny
JIN-ee
Two syllables, stress in front, and no one has ever had to be told twice.
Nicknames for Jinny
Limited
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
- 1940
- Most girls named
- 198023 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2701reached in 1948
- Change vs 2015
- +20.0%6 in 2024, from 5
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.
Jinnys among us
people named Jinny 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
Jinny 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
- It is transparent on the page: nobody misreads it and nobody needs it spelled a second time.
- It has a documented life in Scotland and the north of England and a folk song on the Isle of Man, which is more history than most short forms carry.
- It works as a full name and as a short one, so a child can choose how formal to be on any given day.
- It will be written Jenny by almost everybody, because that spelling is far commoner.
- The folklore is a small joke in a small place, but a child who meets Jinny the Witch at the wrong age may not find it funny.
- Used alone it reads informally to some people, which matters more on a résumé than in a kitchen.
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What they receive
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Jinny
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Jinnys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Jinny are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jinny in 2025?
- Jinny is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Jinny with classmates?
- Jinny will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
Jennifer#586 · Jessica#665 · Janet#2778 · Julie#872 · Joyce#1071 · Joan#1085 · Julia#131 · Jean#2117
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jinny? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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