Jennifer
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Welsh form of Guinevere, from Celtic gwen, 'white, fair'
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 70 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/ˈd͡ʒɛnɪfə/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Jennifer is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 17th most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 180(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 190
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 200
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Jennifer itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #58 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 679 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 183 (inferred from the name graph)
1,331,077 people, 2020
of 15M given names, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)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)Welsh form of Guinevere, from Celtic gwen, 'white, fair'.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Jennifer, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Jennifer 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 | #17 | 1,331,077 | 1 in 250 | 1.3M | Jennifer | 679 |
| PH Philippines | #31 | ≈430,000 est. | ≈1 in 271 | — | Jennifer | 190 |
| GB United Kingdom | #37 | ≈350,000 est. | ≈1 in 198 | 3 | Jennifer | 397 |
| NG Nigeria | #276 | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 912 | — | Jennifer | 143 |
| CA Canada | #17 | ≈220,000 est. | ≈1 in 187 | 9 | Jennifer | 390 |
| AU Australia | #30 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 232 | 88 | Jennifer | 319 |
| IE Ireland | #20 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 183 | — | Jennifer | 160 |
| NZ New Zealand | #30 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 197 | 11 | Jennifer | 176 |
1,331,077 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; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); 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)Jennifer 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.
In English, Cornish form of Guinevere; ‘white wave’.
as a nameIrish first names
It means ‘white wave’. The Cornish form of Guinevere, wife of King Arthur. It is frequently bestowed in Ireland today. Jeremiah [/rimias] (m) Hebrew, ‘may God exalt’. The name of an Old Testament prophet, used in Ireland to anglicise Dermot. It was once frequently used but it is now much rarer.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, A female given name from Cornish, Middle Cornish, or Proto-Brittonic.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, from Welsh Gwenhwyvar, from gwen ‘fair, white’ and (g)wyf ‘smooth, yielding’; first attested Mabilia Jeneuer 1296 SRSx
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In French, Celtic name linked to « white/fair ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)- Jennifer Connellyb. 1970USAmerican actress (born 1970)
- Jennifer Capriatib. 1976USAmerican tennis player
- Ginnifer Goodwinb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
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)129 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 70 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Jennifer mean, and where does it come from?
- Welsh form of Guinevere, from Celtic gwen, 'white, fair'. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
- What are other forms of the name Jennifer?
- In the etymology graph, Jenny, Jennie and Jenna are forms of the same name in other languages; Jen, Jenn and Jenae are recorded short or pet forms.
- How common is the name Jennifer?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,331,077 people named Jennifer in 2020, about 1 in 250 residents.
- How common is Jennifer compared with other names?
- In the United States, Jennifer is the 17th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- Is Jennifer a male or female name?
- Jennifer is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), France (INSEE, 2024), Brazil (IBGE, 2022) and Ecuador (INEC, 2024), among others.
- Which countries have the most people named Jennifer?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.3 million people named Jennifer, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jennifer. After it come Philippines, United Kingdom, Nigeria and Canada; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How do you pronounce Jennifer?
- It depends on the language: in English /ˈd͡ʒɛnɪfə/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /ˈɟ͡ʝe.ni.feɾ/ (Wiktionary).
What do you want to know about Jennifer?
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/jenniferThe 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, “Jennifer” — the 17th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.