Humanverse

Jenifer vs Jenin

American parents have registered 25,573 Jenifers since 1880, against 264 Jenins. But in 2025 it was Jenin that was commoner, 30 babies to 15.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jenifer against Jenin, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jenifer Jenin

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 91 years in which either name was published, Jenifer for 88 years and Jenin for 3 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Jenifer Jenin
Total US births 25,573264
Most in one year 92346
Babies in 2025 1530
Estimated living today 24,000260
Median age today 4611
Peak year 19742002
Best rank 278th girls3,103rd girls
Rank in 2025 7,133rd4,546th
First recorded 19332002
Girls / boys 25,551 / 22264 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Jenifers alive today are over 46; half the Jenins are over 11. That is 35 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Jenifer Jenin
England and Wales 15616

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Jenifer and Jenin.