Jessica is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Jessica isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Jessica ranks 219. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 8 were named Jessica. In total, there are currently 1,045,210 people – children, adults and seniors – named Jessica living in the United States, which is approximately 0.31 % of the entire population.
In this form, the name Jessica was first used by Shakespeare in his play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ (1596). He probably developed it from the Hebrew name Yiskah meaning ‘to behold’. It was not commonly used as a given name until the middle of the 20th century.
9 - this is the amount with which the first name Jessica has already reached the top position, i.e. rank 1, of the most popular first names for girls in the USA. But the last time was a while ago, in the year 1995, when 27,989 newborn girls were given this beautiful name. And even when it wasn't on top in the younger past, it has been given by new parents to their daughters every year since first name statistics began in 1880, putting it in the exclusive circle of only 432 first names for girls that are given at least 5 times a year in the USA. This makes Jessica one of the timeless classics among first names that have truly become part of the American identity.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Jessica was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, the first name Jessica was given 617 times to newborn girls, ranking it #467. The name was given least a long time ago, in the year 1925, where it ranked #1,262 – only 34 newborn girls were given this first name then.
Regardless of where you live in the US, chances are you know someone called Jessica. Because: There are women and girls named Jessica in every state in the USA. If this does not sound particularly spectacular to you, you should know that of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Jessica is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 10 of the most popular female first names, for example in Nevada, where Jessica ranks on place 2, making it one of the most common female first names in the entire state. The greatest chance of meeting Jessica, however, is in Alaska, where one in 72 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 148, women and girls and in Mississippi, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 205 women and girls for their name before you once get Jessica as an answer.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter J is a particularly popular initial letter for girls' names. That’s because 6.8% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. By the way, the most common first letters for girls’ names are A, S and M.
With seven letters, the name Jessica has a typical length for first names in the US. In fact, 26% of all common first names consist of exactly seven letters. 52% of all first names are shorter, while 22% have eight letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
This means that with 6.8% of all girls' names that begin with the letter J, this first letter is much more common than the other letters on average. And Jennifer is the girls' name starting with J, which is the most common of all.
If your name is Jessica and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Jessica, you can simply say:
Joker
Elephant
Sun
Sun
Igloo
Cat
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Jessica
Jessica
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
J
E
S
S
I
C
A
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
J
E
S
S
I
C
A
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Jessica sounds like this:
