Jessica
About 1,054,307 American babies have been named Jessica since 1880, most of them around 1987. In 2025 it ranked 665th. About 1 million Jessicas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 38.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Jessica boys named Jessica
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,054,307
- Estimated living today
- 1 million
- Median age today
- 38
- Peak year
- 1987
- Best rank
- 1st
- Rank in 2025
- 665th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 1,050,729 / 3,578
How old the living Jessicas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,054,307 babies given the name since 1880, about 1 million are alive — 97 in every hundred. Roughly 30,000 of them are children and 5,600 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1987 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
First used by William Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice in the early 17th century, probably from Hebrew יִסְכָּה, a proper name meaning "he will see/behold/look for", the 3ms imperfect form of a verb ultimately, itself an alternative form of the root שׂ־כ־ה, both of which mean "to see, behold, look for".
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Jessicas
- Jessica Alba (born 1981)American actress
- Jessica Lange (born 1949)American actress
- Jessica Simpson (born 1980)American singer and actress
- Jessica Biel (born 1982)American actress
- Sarah Jessica Parker (born 1965)American actress
- Jessica Chastain (born 1977)American actress and producer
- Jessica Tandy (1909–1994)British actress
- Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 1986)British heptathlete
People named Jessica with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Jessica is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Jessica is most concentrated in Alaska (1.8×), Nevada (1.5×), New Hampshire (1.4×), Vermont (1.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1987
The most popular girls’ names the year Jessica peaked:
Jessica elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Jessica | 105,392 | 3rd |
| France girls | Jessica +1 spelling | 71,040 | 15th |
| New Zealand girls | Jessica | 13,079 | 1st |
| Ireland girls | Jessica | 9,306 | 12th |
| Italy girls | Jessica | 8,662 | — |
| Scotland girls | Jessica | 8,272 | 5th |
| Poland girls | Jessica | 4,960 birth registrations | 71st |
| Northern Ireland girls | Jessica | 3,333 | 4th |
| Switzerland girls | Jessica | 3,007 | 6th |
| Austria girls | Jessica | 2,909 | 33rd |
| Belgium girls | Jessica | 1,862 | 35th |
| Norway girls | Jessica | 1,113 | 142nd |
| Sweden girls | Jessica | 770 | 57th |
| France boys | Jessica | 10 | 2,940th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Jessica: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Jessica | 2,152 | 0.173% | 11th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Jessica | 760 | 0.175% | 4th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Jessica | 87 | 0.133% | 18th |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Jessica | 8 | 0.215% | 16th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Jessica is most concentrated in Aargau, where 0.21% of children were given it – 289 of them.
Jessica: rank by region
In 2024, Jessica was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Jessica | 742 | 6 |
In 2013, Jessica was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Jessica | 10 | 2 |
In 2025, Jessica was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Jessica | 234 | 2 |
In 2018, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Jessica appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (300th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Jessica by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 21 | 332nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Jessica among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Jessica | 12,870 | 15,022 |
| Finland girls | Jessica | 3,552 | 5,171 |
| the Netherlands boys | Jessica | — | 45 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Jessica lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 26,643 women called Jessica were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tarragona | Jessica | 891 | 2.038 | 93 |
| Castellón/Castelló | Jessica | 536 | 1.699 | 107 |
| Barcelona | Jessica | 5,079 | 1.669 | 107 |
| Valencia/València | Jessica | 2,002 | 1.419 | 132 |
| Pontevedra | Jessica | 663 | 1.352 | 141 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Jessica | 1,324 | 1.288 | 124 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Jessica against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.