Jenny
A feminine diminutive form of Jane, derived from the Hebrew name Yohanan meaning "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 76,863 living Americans carry the first name Jenny. It is a predominantly female name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Jenny today is around 46 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jenny births was 1977 (2,700 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jenny. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Jenny with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jenny is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 605 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1970s, recent registration numbers for Jenny have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
77K
~ 1 in 4,459 Americans
Peak year
1977
2,700 babies that year
Average age
46
years old
1995 SSA rank
#1,388
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jenny in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 111,783 people with the first name Jenny, which placed it at #503 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#503
National first-name rank
People counted
112K
111,783 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
37.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
50.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jenny
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jenny is White at 50.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (23.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (20.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Jenny described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Jenny at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White50.8% · 56,821
- Hispanic or Latino23.5% · 26,227
- Asian and Pacific Islander20.7% · 23,137
- Black or African American2.3% · 2,577
- Two or more races2.1% · 2,401
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 620
Gender
Gender distribution for Jenny
Out of the 92,561 babies given the name Jenny since 1880, 99.3% 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.
Jenny as a male name
- Ranked #5,685 in 1995
- 10 male births in 1995
- Peak: 1971 (21 births)
Jenny as a female name
- Ranked #1,388 in 2024
- 162 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1977 (2,688 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jenny appears almost entirely female. Of the 111,784 people counted with this name, 99.6% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Jenny: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jenny from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 23,016 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jenny 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 Jenny during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jennys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Jenny, while Delaware, Vermont, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,708 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jenny
Jenny is a diminutive form of the name Jennifer, which derives from the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar. Gwenhwyfar itself is a compound of two Welsh words - "gwen" meaning fair or white, and "hwyfar" meaning smooth or smooth voyage. The name Gwenhwyfar was a Welsh form of the name Guinevere, the legendary wife of King Arthur from Arthurian romance.
The name Gwenhwyfar first appeared in Welsh literature and mythology during the medieval period, particularly in tales of the Mabinogion and the chivalric romances of the Arthurian cycle. These stories portrayed Gwenhwyfar as a beautiful and virtuous queen, though later versions often depicted her as unfaithful to King Arthur.
The English form Jennifer emerged in the 16th century, initially as a scribal error when the name Gwenhwyfar was transcribed from Welsh to English. This error became accepted as a variant spelling, and Jennifer gradually gained popularity as a distinct name.
One of the earliest known bearers of the name Jennifer was Jennifer Carey, born in 1585, the daughter of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon. Another early Jennifer was Jennifer Vavasor, born in 1600, who was the subject of a notorious divorce case in England.
Other notable Jennifers throughout history include:
1. Jennifer Remington (1609-1667), an English Puritan settler in Massachusetts Bay Colony.
2. Jennifer Jones (1919-2009), an American actress who won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1943 for her performance in The Song of Bernadette.
3. Jennifer Doudna (born 1964), an American biochemist who co-discovered the CRISPR gene editing tool, for which she was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
4. Jennifer Capriati (born 1976), an American professional tennis player and former world No. 1.
5. Jennifer Lawrence (born 1990), an American actress known for her roles in films such as The Hunger Games series and Silver Linings Playbook, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2013.
The diminutive form Jenny emerged as a nickname for Jennifer in the 17th century and gained widespread use in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jenny
People
Jenny + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jenny 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
Jenny: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jenny?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 76,863 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jenny 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 4,459 US residents.
Is Jenny a common name?
We classify Jenny 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, 92,561 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jenny most popular?
The single biggest year for Jenny was 1977, when 2,700 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jenny is about 46 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jenny in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 111,783 people with the name Jenny, or 37.01 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #503 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Jenny in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Jenny?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jenny appears almost entirely female. Of the 111,784 people counted with this name, 99.6% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Jenny?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jenny is White at 50.8%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (23.5%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (20.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Jenny most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jenny in the 2020 Census, accounting for 50.8% (56,821 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Jenny in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jenny a female name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Jenny 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.
Is Jenny still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jenny in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Jenny can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people have Jenny as a first name?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.