Jesse
given name · Latin script
Meaning: He represents the immediate origin of the Davidic dynasty and the Messianic lineage
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʒɛsi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Jesse is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 1.1K(measured from records)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.3K
- CACanada≈1 in 1.4K
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)
- #485 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 613 (measured from records)
- 1 in 449 (inferred from the name graph)
293,709 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Jessi in ID Indonesia.
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)
He represents the immediate origin of the Davidic dynasty and the Messianic lineage.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jesse 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 | #192 | 293,709 | 1 in 1.1K | 284K | Jesse | 613 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 7K | — | Jesse | 95 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.6K | — | Jessi | 58 |
| CA Canada | #237 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 22 | Jesse | 280 |
| GB United Kingdom | #400 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 976 | Jesse | 254 |
| AU Australia | #264 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 109 | Jesse | 249 |
| FI Finland | #713 | 12,422 | 1 in 449 | 13K | Jesse | 93 |
| NZ New Zealand | #220 | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 30 | Jesse | 124 |
293,709 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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Jesse is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
A classic biblical name implying a gift, blessing, or wealth.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, "Praised one"; biblical name, son of ...
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
from Old French jaisse ‘chick pea’; probably a metonymic occupational name for a grower of chick peas or a topographic name.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Biblical name (meaning ‘gift’ in Hebrew), borne by the father of King David (1
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
topographic name from Czech jes(en) ‘ash tree’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Jesse L. Laskyb. 1880USAmerican film producer and co-founder of Paramount Pictures (1880–1958)
- Jesse Owensb. 1913USAmerican track and field athlete (1913–1980)
- Jesse Jacksonb. 1941USAmerican Baptist minister, activist, civil rights leader, politician, and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition (1941–2026)
- Jesse Marschb. 1973USAmerican soccer coach
- Jesse Metcalfeb. 1978USAmerican actor
- Jesse Janeb. 1980USAmerican pornographic actress (1980–2024)
- Jesse Eisenbergb. 1983USAmerican actor
- Jesse McCartneyb. 1987USAmerican singer and actor
- Jesse Plemonsb. 1988USAmerican actor (born 1988)
- Jesse Lingardb. 1992GBEnglish footballer (born 1992)
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 100 sources across 50 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 284K | #175 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 13K | #167 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 12K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 9.9K | #175 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 2K | — |
| GB United Kingdom | ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024) | 2024 | 976 | #54 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 143 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2014 | 109 | #93 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 72 | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2015 | 65 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 53 | #5,123 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 30 | — |
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
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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
- Is Jesse a male or female name?
- Jesse 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.
- What does the name Jesse mean, and where does it come from?
- He represents the immediate origin of the Davidic dynasty and the Messianic lineage. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- In which country does Jesse have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 294 thousand people named Jesse, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jesse.
- Where is Jesse most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Jesse is densest in Finland — about 1 in 449 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Jesse?
- In the etymology graph, Jessie, Yishai and Iessai are forms of the same name in other languages; Jess is a recorded short or pet form.
- How do you pronounce Jesse?
- A machine transcription gives /dʒɛsi/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Jesse?
- In the United States, the national register counted 293,709 people named Jesse in 2020, about 1 in 1.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Jesse compared with other names?
- In the United States, Jesse is the 192nd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Jesse?
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/jesseThe 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, “Jesse” — the 192nd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.