Jim
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Short form of James, already common in the Middle Ages
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʒɪm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Jim is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 719(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 1K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.8K
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 Jim itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #521 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 621 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 719 (inferred from the name graph)
173,056 named Jimmy, 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 Jimmy in EC Ecuador.
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)
Short form of James, already common in the Middle Ages. Pet forms: Jimmy, Jimmie. JoZd Usually a girl’s name, a short form of pJoanna, jJoanne, Jody, or \Josephine, sometimes used in combination with other names, for example Nancy Jo and Jo Anne (see Joanne). Occasionally it is a boy’s name, a variant of pJoe.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jim 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 | #218 | 173,056as Jimmy | 1 in 1.9K | 172K | Jim | 621 |
| CA Canada | #118 | ≈52,000 est. | ≈1 in 719 | 3 | Jim | 301 |
| GB United Kingdom | #337 | ≈37,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | 3 | Jim | 309 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 29,155as Jimmy | 1 in 580 | 29K | Jimmy | 33 |
| PH Philippines | #836 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.9K | — | Jim | 134 |
| SE Sweden | #525 | 17,823as Jimmy | 1 in 572 | 18K | Jim | 123 |
| FI Finland | — | 5,272as Jimi | 1 in 1.1K | 5.4K | Jim | 53 |
| IE Ireland | #142 | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Jim | 123 |
| NO Norway | #616 | 1,529 | 1 in 3.6K | 3.9K | Jim | 81 |
173,056 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling jimmy. 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; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); INEC — civil registry names; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Jim 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.
Chinese M ■ Cantonese variant of Zhan. This name is common in Hawaii.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A diminutive of the male given name James.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Jim är en engelsk form av → James. En känd namnbärare är den kanadensiske skådespelaren Jim Carrey (f. 1962). I den finlandssvenska almanackan 25 juli.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Diminutif anglais de Jacques, du hébreu Ya‘aqov (« talon » ou « supplanteur »).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
English and Irish: short form of JAMES , already common in the Middle Ages.
as a word
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)
- Jimmy Carterb. 1924USnot in their usual namepresident of the United States from 1977 to 1981 (1924–2024)
- Jim Lovellb. 1928USAmerican astronaut (1928–2025)
- Jim Clyburnb. 1940USAmerican politician (born 1940)
- Jimmy Cliffb. 1944JMnot in their usual nameJamaican musician (1944–2025)
- Jim Sheridanb. 1949IEIrish playwright and filmmaker
- Jim Piddockb. 1956GBBritish actor
- Jim Yong Kimb. 1959USSouth Korean-American physician and anthropologist, 12th President of the World Bank
- Jimmy Walesb. 1966USnot in their usual nameco-founder of Wikipedia (born 1966)
- Jimmy Shergillb. 1970INnot in their usual nameIndian actor
- MrBeastb. 1998USnot in their usual nameAmerican YouTuber, media personality and businessman (born 1998)
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 97 sources across 50 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 99K | #553 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 6.3K | #535 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 4K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 3.9K | #736 |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 1.5K | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 934 | #785 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 712 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 415 | #553 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 38 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 20 | #21,014 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 7 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navn (1880–present) | 2017 | 6 | — |
Reference works 7
- 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
- Wikipedia surname 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
- Where does the name Jim come from?
- Short form of James, already common in the Middle Ages. Pet forms: Jimmy, Jimmie. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Jim a male or female name?
- Jim 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 are other forms of the name Jim?
- In the etymology graph, Jay, Jaime and Jamie are forms of the same name in other languages; Jimmy, Jimmie and Jimi are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of James and Jaymes.
- What does the name Jim mean?
- Recorded meaning: Short form of James, already common in the Middle Ages.
- In which country does Jim have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 173 thousand people named Jimmy, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Jim?
- In Norway, the national register counted 1,529 people named Jim in 2025, about 1 in 3.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Jim compared with other names?
- In the United States, Jim is the 218th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Jim?
- A machine transcription gives /dʒɪm/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Jim?
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/jimThe 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, “Jim” — the 218th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.