Jeanette
A feminine form of the French name "Jean", meaning "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 80,906 living Americans carry the first name Jeanette. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Jeanette today is around 61 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jeanette births was 1939 (2,902 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jeanette. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Although Jeanette is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 537 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1930s, recent registration numbers for Jeanette have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
81K
~ 1 in 4,236 Americans
Peak year
1939
2,902 babies that year
Average age
61
years old
1995 SSA rank
#2,778
Tracked since 1880
Gender
Gender distribution for Jeanette
Out of the 163,902 babies given the name Jeanette since 1880, 99.7% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Jeanette as a male name
- Ranked #9,484 in 1995
- 5 male births in 1995
- Peak: 1935 (18 births)
Jeanette as a female name
- Ranked #2,778 in 2024
- 61 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1939 (2,893 births)
Popularity
Jeanette: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jeanette from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1930s, with 24,870 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1930s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jeanette by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Jeanette during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jeanettes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Jeanette, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 3,047 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jeanette
The name Jeanette originated from the French feminine form of the male name Jean, which itself derives from the Hebrew name Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious." The name Jeanette first appeared in France during the Middle Ages, around the 12th century.
Jeanette is a diminutive form of Jeanne, which was a very popular name in medieval France. It was influenced by the French name Jehanne, which was a variant spelling of the name. The earliest recorded use of the name Jeanette dates back to the 13th century.
One of the most famous historical figures with the name Jeanette was Jeanette d'Arc, better known as Joan of Arc (1412-1431), the French heroine and Catholic saint who played a pivotal role in the Hundred Years' War. She was canonized in 1920 by the Catholic Church.
Another notable Jeanette in history was Jeanette Rankin (1880-1973), an American politician and activist who became the first woman elected to the United States Congress in 1917. She was also a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement.
In the realm of literature, Jeanette Winterson (born 1959) is a renowned English writer and novelist, best known for her semi-autobiographical novel "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit," which won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel in 1985.
Jeanette MacDonald (1903-1965) was an American singer and actress who starred in numerous musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, including "Naughty Marietta" and "San Francisco."
Jeanette Piccard (1884-1936) was a Swiss-American balloonist and the first woman to reach the stratosphere. In 1934, she ascended to a record-breaking altitude of 57,559 feet (17,546 meters) in a balloon, accompanied by her husband, Jean Felix Piccard.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jeanette
People
Jeanette + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jeanette as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with J
Other first names starting with J with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Jeanette: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jeanette?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 80,906 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jeanette going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 4,236 US residents.
Is Jeanette a common name?
We classify Jeanette as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 163,902 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jeanette most popular?
The single biggest year for Jeanette was 1939, when 2,902 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jeanette is about 61 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Jeanette a female name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Jeanette in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.