Jeff
given name · Latin script
Meaning: pet-form of Geoffrey; first attested Geffe 1260 AssCh
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʒɛf/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Jeff is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Canada it is the 84th most common given name.
- CACanada≈1 in 592(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 900
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #330 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 648 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 592 (inferred from the name graph)
208,615 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Geoff in IE Ireland.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
pet-form of Geoffrey; first attested Geffe 1260 AssCh
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jeff counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #136 | 208,615 | 1 in 1.6K | 208K | Jeff | 648 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈65,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | — | Jeff | 112 |
| CA Canada | #84 | ≈64,000 est. | ≈1 in 592 | 1 | Jeff | 335 |
| GB United Kingdom | #237 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 3 | Jeff | 301 |
| IT Italy | #394 | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | 1 | Jeff | 82 |
| AU Australia | #156 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 3 | Jeff | 254 |
| SG Singapore | #109 | ≈6,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Jeff | 114 |
| NZ New Zealand | #114 | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 900 | — | Jeff | 134 |
| IE Ireland | #506 | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Geoff | 90 |
208,615 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Jeff is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Short form of Jeffrey, now also used as an independent given name, especially in North America.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, Short form of Jeffrey/Geoffrey.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
English: short form of JEFFREY , now commonly used as an independent given name, especially in America.
as a word
In gv, a male given name, equivalent to English Geoffrey
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Jeff Rawleb. 1951GBEnglish actor
- Jeff Goldblumb. 1952USAmerican actor and musician
- Jeff Lindsayb. 1952USAmerican playwright and crime novelist (born 1952)
- Jeff Koonsb. 1955USAmerican sculptor and painter (born 1955)
- Jeff Foxworthyb. 1958USAmerican comedian, actor, host, and writer
- Jeff Bennettb. 1962USAmerican voice actor
- Jeff Hannemanb. 1964USAmerican guitarist (1964–2013)
- Jeff Kinneyb. 1971USAmerican author and cartoonist (born 1971)
- Jeff Gordonb. 1971USAmerican racing driver
- Jeff Baenab. 1977USAmerican screenwriter and film director (1977–2025)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 84 sources across 50 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 208K | #267 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 247 | #267 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 35 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1988 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2008 | 3 | #638 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 1980 | 3 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 1 | #2,319 |
| IT Italy | ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend) | 2023 | 1 | #14,569 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2015 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2015 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 1 | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Jeff mean, and where does it come from?
- pet-form of Geoffrey; first attested Geffe 1260 AssCh Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Jeff?
- In the etymology graph, Geoff, Godofredo and Gottfried are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Jeffrey and Jeffery.
- Is Jeff a male or female name?
- Jeff is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How do you pronounce Jeff?
- A machine transcription gives /dʒɛf/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Jeff have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 209 thousand people named Jeff, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jeff.
- How common is the name Jeff?
- In the United States, the national register counted 208,615 people named Jeff in 2020, about 1 in 1.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Jeff compared with other names?
- In the United States, Jeff is the 136th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Jeff?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/jeffThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Jeff” — the 136th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.