Jessica

girls’ nameFadedCompare

Jessica is ranked 574th among girls in 2024 (526 births). It was the number one girl’s name in 1985–1990, 1993–1995.

Rank in 2024: #574down 24 from 2023
Births in 2024: 5260.03% of girls
Peak year: 198755,996 births
Best rank: #1first in 1985
Since 1880: 1,053,884people given the name

Babies named Jessica, by year of birthgirls

The story in the numbers

1,050,306 girls have been named Jessica in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1987, with 55,996 births — 3.2% of all girls recorded that year.

The name has all but left use: 526 births in 2024, against 55,996 at the peak.

Half of everyone given the name was born by 1987, and the 1980s alone account for 45%. It has spent 120 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 41 of them in the top 100 and 25 in the top 10.

It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 3,578 boys have also been given it, 0.34% of the total.

Rank among girls, year by year

Higher on the chart = more popularrank (gaps = outside the top 1,000)

By decade

Decade	girls named Jessica
1880s	94
1890s	135
1900s	159
1910s	411
1920s	410
1930s	499
1940s	2,204
1950s	4,560
1960s	13,671
1970s	143,498
1980s	469,518
1990s	303,129
2000s	90,665
2010s	18,222
2020s	3,131

In 1987, its biggest year

Jessica was the most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1987 were Jessica, Ashley, Amanda, Jennifer and Sarah. See all of 1987.

Names that rose and fell with Jessica

Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.

Other spellings in the data

What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.