Jeff
A masculine name of English or Germanic origin meaning "peaceful traveler".
Name Census estimates that about 95,388 living Americans carry the first name Jeff. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jeff today is around 61 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jeff births was 1961 (9,473 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jeff. 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 Jeff with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jeff is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 263 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1960s, recent registration numbers for Jeff have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
95K
~ 1 in 3,593 Americans
Peak year
1961
9,473 babies that year
Average age
61
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,920
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jeff in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 208,614 people with the first name Jeff, which placed it at #267 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
#267
National first-name rank
People counted
209K
208,614 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
69.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
88.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jeff
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeff is White at 88.3%. The next largest groups are Black (3.4%) and Hispanic (2.8%). 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 Jeff 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 Jeff at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White88.3% · 184,292
- Black or African American3.4% · 7,040
- Hispanic or Latino2.8% · 5,920
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.7% · 5,635
- Two or more races2.2% · 4,525
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 1,202
Gender
Gender distribution for Jeff
Out of the 120,475 babies given the name Jeff since 1880, 99.8% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Jeff as a male name
- Ranked #2,920 in 2024
- 43 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1961 (9,462 births)
Jeff as a female name
- Ranked #12,592 in 1988
- 5 female births in 1988
- Peak: 1960 (20 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeff appears almost entirely male. Of the 208,615 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Jeff: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jeff from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1960s, with 62,224 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
Jeff 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 Jeff during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jeffs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Ohio, Illinois recorded the most babies named Jeff, while Vermont, Alaska, Rhode Island recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 2,247 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jeff
The name Jeff is a shortened form of the English name Jeffrey, which derives from the medieval German name Gottfried. Gottfried is a compound name formed from the words "gott" meaning "god" and "frid" meaning "peace." The name can be translated to mean "God's peace" or "the peace of God."
Gottfried was a popular name among the Franks during the Middle Ages, and it was introduced to Britain by the Normans after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The spelling variants included Geffraye, Gefferay, and Gefrai.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Jeffrey appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, a record of a great survey of landowners in England commissioned by William the Conqueror. The name is listed as "Geffrei."
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals with the name Jeff or Jeffrey. One of the earliest was Geoffrey of Monmouth, a 12th-century British cleric and writer who is best known for his chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).
Another notable figure was Geoffrey Chaucer, the 14th-century English poet and author of the Canterbury Tales, who was born around 1343. His son was also named Geoffrey.
In the 16th century, Sir Geoffrey Fenton was an English writer and statesman who served as the Principal Secretary of State in Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Geoffrey of Vendôme, born around 1065, was a French Benedictine monk and cardinal who played a significant role in the Investiture Controversy between the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire.
One of the more famous historical figures with the name Jeff is Jefferson Davis, born in 1808, who served as the President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jeff
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Jeff Anderson
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Jeff Bagwell
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Jeff Bingaman
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Jeff Blake
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Jeff Bridges
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Jeff Burr
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Jeff Burton
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Jeff Byrd
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Jeff Cirillo
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Jeff Conaway
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Jeff Conine
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Jeff Daniels
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Jeff Fahey
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Jeff Farnsworth
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Jeff Fatt
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Jeff Flake
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Jeff Fortenberry
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Jeff Foster
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Jeff Francoeur
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Jeff Friesen
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Jeff Garcia
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Jeff Goldblum
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Jeff Gordon
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Jeff Green
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Jeff Kent
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Jeff Miller
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Jeff Morrow
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Jeff Nelson
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Jeff Pollack
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Jeff Sessions
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Jeff Suppan
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Jeff Tremaine
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Jeff Weaver
People
Jeff + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jeff 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
Jeff: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jeff?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 95,388 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jeff 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 3,593 US residents.
Is Jeff a common name?
We classify Jeff as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 120,475 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jeff most popular?
The single biggest year for Jeff was 1961, when 9,473 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jeff 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 Jeff in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 208,614 people with the name Jeff, or 69.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #267 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 Jeff 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 Jeff?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jeff appears almost entirely male. Of the 208,615 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Jeff?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jeff is White at 88.3%. The next largest groups are Black (3.4%) and Hispanic (2.8%). 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 Jeff most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jeff in the 2020 Census, accounting for 88.3% (184,292 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 Jeff in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jeff a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Jeff 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 Jeff still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jeff 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 Jeff 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 Jeff?
You can see how many people share the name Jeff on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.