Jerrold
A masculine name derived from Gerald, meaning "ruler with a spear".
Name Census estimates that about 5,387 living Americans carry the first name Jerrold. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jerrold today is around 64 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jerrold births was 1954 (343 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jerrold. 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.
People living today
5.4K
~ 1 in 63,626 Americans
Peak year
1954
343 babies that year
Average age
64
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,104
Tracked since 1911
Popularity
Jerrold: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jerrold from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 2,261 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jerrold 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 Jerrold during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jerrolds live
The SSA's state-level files cover 35 states and territories. New York, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Jerrold, while North Carolina, Connecticut, Arizona recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 139 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jerrold
The name Jerrold is derived from the Old English name Gerald or Gerold, which is composed of the Germanic elements "ger" meaning "spear" and "wald" meaning "rule" or "power." The name can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain, around the 5th to 11th centuries.
Jerrold was a relatively common name among the Anglo-Saxons, and it was also used in other Germanic cultures such as the Franks and the Normans. The name appears in various historical records and documents from this period, including the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Domesday Book.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Jerrold is found in the Domesday Book of 1086, where a landowner named Jerrold is listed as holding property in the county of Essex. The name was also recorded in the Pipe Rolls, which were financial records of the English monarchy, in the late 12th century.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals who bore the name Jerrold. Jerrold Casway (1335-1404) was an English clergyman and philosopher who wrote extensively on the works of Aristotle. Jerrold Walpole (1676-1745) was a British writer and politician who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1721 to 1742.
Another notable bearer of the name was Jerrold Douglass (1817-1892), an American abolitionist and orator who worked alongside Frederick Douglass in the fight against slavery. Jerrold Parnell (1846-1891) was an Irish politician and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who campaigned for Irish home rule in the late 19th century.
In the realm of literature, Jerrold Meredith (1828-1909) was a British novelist and poet who is considered one of the great novelists of the Victorian era. His most famous works include "The Egoist" and "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel."
These are just a few examples of notable individuals throughout history who bore the name Jerrold, which has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic cultures of ancient Britain and Europe.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jerrold
People
Jerrold + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jerrold 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
Jerrold: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jerrold?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 5,387 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jerrold 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 63,626 US residents.
Is Jerrold a common name?
We classify Jerrold as "Rare". It ranks above 96.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 8,467 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jerrold most popular?
The single biggest year for Jerrold was 1954, when 343 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jerrold is about 64 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Jerrold a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jerrold in the SSA data are male. 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.