Humanverse

Jeniyah vs Jennie

American parents have registered 127,660 Jennies since 1880, against 563 Jeniyahs. Jennie is still ahead, with 79 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jeniyah against Jennie, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jeniyah Jennie

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

Jennie has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2011, when Jeniyah had 40 and Jennie had 63.

Side by side

  Jeniyah Jennie
Total US births 563127,660
Most in one year 413,119
Babies in 2025 1079
Estimated living today 56037,000
Median age today 1555
Peak year 20081917
Best rank 3,859th girls81st girls
Rank in 2025 9,457th2,298th
First recorded 19991880
Girls / boys 563 / 0127,181 / 479

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 Jennies alive today are over 55; half the Jeniyahs are over 15. That is 40 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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