Jenny

111,784 people in America carry this name — ranked #503 of 923.

Carried mostly by Generation X.

Say it JEH nee

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

JH EH1 N IY0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 111,784 2020 Census
  • Rank #503 Common
  • Per 100,000 37.0 about 1 in 2,965 people
  • As a surname 1,170 ranked #22,534 the other way round

What Jenny means and where it comes from

Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “grace of the Lord”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

How often Jenny has been given

91,904 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1977, with 2,699 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70s 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1970s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Jenny

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Jenny Jennifer — same opening
  • Jenny Julie — same opening
  • Jenny Janet — same opening

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Jenny has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to Generation X.

Boys or girls: who is called Jenny?

0.4% men
111,390 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

The states where Jenny is most common

In Utah the name is given 1.9 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Utah ×1.9
  • Wyoming ×1.7
  • Idaho ×1.5
  • Hawaii ×1.5
  • Montana ×1.5

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Same syllables and stress as Jenny

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

The same name abroad

  • Jane English
  • Seoin Irish
  • Nozzo Italian
  • Janet Scottish
  • Hanne German
  • Hanka Lus
  • Jessie Scottish
  • Jeanne French
  • Jantje Dutch
  • Ivanna Russian
  • Ivanku Bulg
  • Zaneta Russian
  • Jehanne French
  • Jantina Dutch

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin