Jesse

293,709 people in America carry this name — ranked #175 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it JEH see

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

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

  • People counted 293,709 2020 Census
  • Rank #175 Common
  • Per 100,000 97.2 about 1 in 1,128 people

The meaning and origin of Jesse

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

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.

Jesse name popularity by year

434,769 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1981, with 10,831 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1980s. 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.

What goes well after Jesse

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

Better avoided

  • Jesse John — same opening
  • Jesse James — same opening
  • Jesse Joseph — 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.

Never out of use

Jesse has been given in every decade on record — no fashion lifted it and none has dropped it.

Boys or girls: who is called Jesse?

96.6% men
9,943 women

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

Same syllables and stress as Jesse

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.

Where in America Jesse is thickest on the ground

In Alaska the name is given 2.1 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Alaska ×2.1
  • Wyoming ×2.1
  • Montana ×2.0
  • South Dakota ×2.0
  • North Dakota ×1.8

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.

How to spell Jesse

Jesse is how 74% of them spell it — 398,245 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Try it How Rare Is It?

Where this name sits between household and almost unheard of.

Common

  • People counted293,709
  • Rank#175
  • Roughly1 in 1,128 people

Open the full entry

Open How Rare Is It? 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