Names/J

Jennifer

girls’ nameFadedCompare

Jennifer is ranked 547th among girls in 2024 (552 births). It was the number one girl’s name in 1970–1984.

Rank in 2024
#547down 26 from 2023
Births in 2024
5520.03% of girls
Peak year
197263,602 births
Best rank
#1first in 1970
Since 1919
1,476,028people given the name
Babies named Jennifer, by year of birthgirls
025k50k75k100k18801900192019401960198020002020

The story in the numbers

1,471,191 girls have been named Jennifer in the United States since 1919, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1972, with 63,602 births — 4.2% of all girls recorded that year.

The name has all but left use: 552 births in 2024, against 63,602 at the peak.

Half of everyone given the name was born by 1978, and the 1970s alone account for 40%. It has spent 87 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 53 of them in the top 100 and 26 in the top 10.

It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 4,837 boys have also been given it, 0.33% of the total.

Rank among girls, year by year

Higher on the chart = more popularrank (gaps = outside the top 1,000)
#1#250#500#750#100018801900192019401960198020002020

By decade

Decadegirls named Jennifer
1910s6
1920s86
1930s368
1940s10,685
1950s43,074
1960s164,414
1970s581,733
1980s440,916
1990s148,036
2000s63,506
2010s15,251
2020s3,116

In 1972, its biggest year

Jennifer was the most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1972 were Jennifer, Michelle, Lisa, Kimberly and Amy. See all of 1972.

Names that rose and fell with Jennifer

Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.

Other spellings in the data

What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.