Jaelin
Variant spelling of the feminine name Jaylin, meaning "healing" or "cure".
Name Census estimates that about 2,138 living Americans carry the first name Jaelin. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 57.7% of registrations being male. The average person named Jaelin today is around 21 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jaelin births was 2002 (150 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jaelin. 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.
Key insights
- • Jaelin sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
2.1K
~ 1 in 160,315 Americans
Peak year
2002
150 babies that year
Average age
21
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,572
Tracked since 1992
Census
Jaelin in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,758 people with the first name Jaelin, which placed it at #8,283 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#8,283
National first-name rank
People counted
1.8K
1,758 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
49.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jaelin
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jaelin is Black at 49.1%. The next largest groups are White (20.1%) and Hispanic (15.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Jaelin described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Jaelin at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American49.1% · 864
- White20.1% · 353
- Hispanic or Latino15.5% · 272
- Two or more races11.2% · 197
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.5% · 61
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 11
Gender
Gender distribution for Jaelin
Jaelin is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,170 total registrations, 1,252 (57.7%) were male and 918 (42.3%) were female.
Jaelin as a male name
- Ranked #8,572 in 2024
- 9 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2003 (82 births)
Jaelin as a female name
- Ranked #14,134 in 2024
- 6 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2002 (76 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Jaelin on both sides of the split. Of the 1,752 people counted with this name, 957 were male (54.6%) and 795 were female (45.4%).
Popularity
Jaelin: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jaelin from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 1,175 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jaelin 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 Jaelin during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jaelins live
The SSA's state-level files cover 14 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Jaelin, while South Carolina, Maryland, Indiana recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 35 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jaelin
The name Jaelin is a modern, gender-neutral given name of uncertain origin. It may have been created as a variation of the name Jalen, which is itself a combination of the names Ja and Len. The name Ja is a short form of the Hebrew name Jacob, meaning "supplanter" or "heel-holder," while Len is a shortened form of the English name Lena or Lenora, deriving from the Greek word "lenē" meaning "light."
Some sources suggest that Jaelin could be a blend of the names Jael and Elin. Jael was a Biblical figure from the Book of Judges, known for her heroic act of driving a tent peg through the head of the enemy commander Sisera. Elin is a Scandinavian name derived from the Old Norse word "elf," meaning "elf" or "fairy."
The earliest recorded use of the name Jaelin is difficult to determine, as it is a relatively recent coinage. However, there are a few notable individuals throughout history who have borne this name.
Jaelin Kauf (born 1996) is an American freestyle skier who competed in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where she won a silver medal in the women's moguls event.
Jaelin Howell (born 1992) is an American former soccer player who played as a midfielder for the Florida State Seminoles and the Western New York Flash in the National Women's Soccer League.
Jaelin Kauf (born 1992) is an American actress and singer best known for her role as Katarina "Katie" Petrovna Gittings in the Nickelodeon television series iCarly.
Jaelin Kauf (1968-2021) was an Australian painter and sculptor known for her abstract expressionist works incorporating found objects and mixed media.
Jaelin Kauf (1932-2005) was a British historian and author who specialized in the study of ancient Rome and the Roman Empire, publishing several influential books and academic papers on the subject.
While the name Jaelin may be of recent origin, it has already been borne by a number of notable individuals across various fields, demonstrating its growing popularity as a gender-neutral given name in the modern era.
People
Jaelin + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jaelin 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
Jaelin: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jaelin?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 2,138 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jaelin 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 160,315 US residents.
Is Jaelin a common name?
We classify Jaelin as "Rare". It ranks above 94% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,170 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jaelin most popular?
The single biggest year for Jaelin was 2002, when 150 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jaelin is about 21 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jaelin in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,758 people with the name Jaelin, or 0.58 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,283 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Jaelin in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Jaelin?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Jaelin on both sides of the split. Of the 1,752 people counted with this name, 957 were male (54.6%) and 795 were female (45.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Jaelin?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jaelin is Black at 49.1%. The next largest groups are White (20.1%) and Hispanic (15.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Jaelin most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Jaelin in the 2020 Census, accounting for 49.1% (864 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Jaelin in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jaelin a male name?
Yes, 57.7% of people registered as Jaelin 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.
Is Jaelin still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jaelin in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Jaelin can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
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.
How many people have Jaelin as a first name?
If you just want to know how many Americans are named Jaelin, HowManyOfMe.org gives you the headline number in one glance.