Jeannene
Feminine form of Jean, a French name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious".
Name Census estimates that about 394 living Americans carry the first name Jeannene. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Jeannene today is around 67 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jeannene births was 1960 (27 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jeannene. 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
- • The typical person named Jeannene is about 67 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Jeannenes were born before 1969.
People living today
394
~ 1 in 869,935 Americans
Peak year
1960
27 babies that year
Average age
67
years old
1982 SSA rank
#11,173
Tracked since 1929
Census
Jeannene in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 563 people with the first name Jeannene, which placed it at #18,985 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
#18,985
National first-name rank
People counted
563
563 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jeannene
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeannene is White at 87.9%. The next largest groups are Black (5.2%) and Two or More Races (3.0%). 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 Jeannene 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 Jeannene at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.9% · 495
- Black or African American5.2% · 29
- Two or more races3.0% · 17
- Hispanic or Latino2.5% · 14
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.4% · 8
Popularity
Jeannene: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jeannene from the 1920s through to the 1980s, spanning 7 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 156 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1960s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jeannene 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 Jeannene during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jeannenes live
Origin
Meaning and history of Jeannene
The name Jeannene is a feminine given name with French origins, believed to have derived from the Old French name Jehanne, which was a variant of the name Jehane or Jeanne. The latter names trace their roots back to the medieval French form of the Hebrew name Yohanan, meaning "God is gracious."
In the Middle Ages, the name Jehanne gained popularity in France, particularly after the legendary French heroine Joan of Arc, whose birth name was Jehanne d'Arc (1412-1431). Her remarkable story and eventual martyrdom likely contributed to the widespread use of Jehanne and its variants across Europe.
The earliest recorded example of the specific spelling "Jeannene" dates back to the late 19th century, though its precise origin is uncertain. It is believed to have emerged as a diminutive or pet form of the name Jeanne, with the addition of the French suffix "-ene" or "-ene."
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Jeannene was Jeannene Haskell (1903-1978), an American actress and dancer who appeared in several Broadway productions and films in the 1920s and 1930s. Another early figure was Jeannene Marie Shepard (1915-1995), an American artist and art educator known for her abstract expressionist paintings.
In the literary world, Jeannene Blonski (1926-2001) was an American novelist and short story writer who wrote works exploring themes of family dynamics and the immigrant experience. Her debut novel, "The Whole Skinny on Stallone," was published in 1971.
In the realm of sports, Jeannene Booher (born 1953) is a former American track and field athlete who specialized in the long jump and won multiple NCAA championships in the 1970s. She later became a successful coach at the University of Southern California.
More recently, Jeannene Rousseau (born 1951) is a Canadian politician who served as a member of the National Assembly of Quebec for the Parti Québécois from 1994 to 2007, and held various ministerial positions during her tenure.
While the name Jeannene may have French origins, it has been adopted and used across different cultures and regions, particularly in North America, where it has maintained a relatively modest level of popularity over the past century.
People
Jeannene + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jeannene 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
Jeannene: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jeannene?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 394 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jeannene 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 869,935 US residents.
Is Jeannene a common name?
We classify Jeannene as "Very Rare". It ranks above 82.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 683 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jeannene most popular?
The single biggest year for Jeannene was 1960, when 27 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jeannene is about 67 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jeannene in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 563 people with the name Jeannene, or 0.19 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #18,985 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 Jeannene 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 Jeannene?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeannene appears almost entirely female. Of the 563 people counted with this name, 99.5% 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 Jeannene?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeannene is White at 87.9%. The next largest groups are Black (5.2%) and Two or More Races (3.0%). 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 Jeannene most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jeannene in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.9% (495 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 Jeannene in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jeannene a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jeannene 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 Jeannene still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jeannene 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 Jeannene 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 the name Jeannene?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.