Jeanette
A feminine form of the French name "Jean", meaning "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 80,906 living Americans carry the first name Jeanette. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Jeanette today is around 61 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jeanette births was 1939 (2,902 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jeanette. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Jeanette with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jeanette is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 537 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1930s, recent registration numbers for Jeanette have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
81K
~ 1 in 4,236 Americans
Peak year
1939
2,902 babies that year
Average age
61
years old
1995 SSA rank
#2,778
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jeanette in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 98,711 people with the first name Jeanette, which placed it at #556 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
#556
National first-name rank
People counted
99K
98,711 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
32.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
64.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jeanette
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeanette is White at 64.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.0%) and Black (14.0%). 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 Jeanette 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 Jeanette at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White64.6% · 63,772
- Hispanic or Latino16.0% · 15,779
- Black or African American14.0% · 13,830
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.5% · 2,441
- Two or more races2.2% · 2,143
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 746
Gender
Gender distribution for Jeanette
Out of the 163,902 babies given the name Jeanette since 1880, 99.7% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Jeanette as a male name
- Ranked #9,484 in 1995
- 5 male births in 1995
- Peak: 1935 (18 births)
Jeanette as a female name
- Ranked #2,778 in 2024
- 61 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1939 (2,893 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeanette appears almost entirely female. Of the 98,707 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Jeanette: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jeanette from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1930s, with 24,870 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1930s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jeanette 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 Jeanette during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jeanettes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Jeanette, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 3,047 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jeanette
The name Jeanette originated from the French feminine form of the male name Jean, which itself derives from the Hebrew name Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious." The name Jeanette first appeared in France during the Middle Ages, around the 12th century.
Jeanette is a diminutive form of Jeanne, which was a very popular name in medieval France. It was influenced by the French name Jehanne, which was a variant spelling of the name. The earliest recorded use of the name Jeanette dates back to the 13th century.
One of the most famous historical figures with the name Jeanette was Jeanette d'Arc, better known as Joan of Arc (1412-1431), the French heroine and Catholic saint who played a pivotal role in the Hundred Years' War. She was canonized in 1920 by the Catholic Church.
Another notable Jeanette in history was Jeanette Rankin (1880-1973), an American politician and activist who became the first woman elected to the United States Congress in 1917. She was also a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement.
In the realm of literature, Jeanette Winterson (born 1959) is a renowned English writer and novelist, best known for her semi-autobiographical novel "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit," which won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel in 1985.
Jeanette MacDonald (1903-1965) was an American singer and actress who starred in numerous musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, including "Naughty Marietta" and "San Francisco."
Jeanette Piccard (1884-1936) was a Swiss-American balloonist and the first woman to reach the stratosphere. In 1934, she ascended to a record-breaking altitude of 57,559 feet (17,546 meters) in a balloon, accompanied by her husband, Jean Felix Piccard.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jeanette
People
Jeanette + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jeanette 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
Jeanette: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jeanette?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 80,906 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jeanette 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 4,236 US residents.
Is Jeanette a common name?
We classify Jeanette as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 163,902 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jeanette most popular?
The single biggest year for Jeanette was 1939, when 2,902 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jeanette is about 61 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jeanette in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 98,711 people with the name Jeanette, or 32.68 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #556 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 Jeanette 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 Jeanette?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeanette appears almost entirely female. Of the 98,707 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Jeanette?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeanette is White at 64.6%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (16.0%) and Black (14.0%). 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 Jeanette most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jeanette in the 2020 Census, accounting for 64.6% (63,772 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 Jeanette in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jeanette a female name?
Yes, 99.7% of people registered as Jeanette in the SSA data are female. 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 Jeanette still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jeanette 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 Jeanette 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 are called Jeanette?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.