Jane
Jane reached its high-water mark in 1947 at number 36, and has been recorded 381,009 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 221st. About 207,000 Janes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Jane boys named Jane
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 381,009
- Estimated living today
- 207,000
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 36th
- Rank in 2025
- 221st
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 379,876 / 1,133
How old the living Janes are
born that year still alive today
Of the 381,009 babies given the name since 1880, about 207,000 are alive — 54 in every hundred. Roughly 19,000 of them are children and 128,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 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 French
Variant of Jeanne, from French Jeanne, from Middle French Jehanne, from Medieval Latin Johanna, variant of Latin Ioanna under influence from Latin Iōhannēs, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννα, from Hebrew יוֹחָנָה, the feminized form of יְהוֹחָנָן which produced John and its many doublets. As a placeholder name, cf.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Janes
- Jane Austen (1775–1817)English novelist
- Jane Fonda (born 1937)American actress and activist
- Jane Goodall (1934–2025)English primatologist and anthropologist
- Jane Addams (1860–1935)American feminist social activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, philosopher, and writer
- Lady Jane Grey (1537–1554)Queen of England and Ireland in July 1553
- Jane Wyman (1917–2007)American actress
- Jane Birkin (1946–2023)British-French actress and singer
- Jane Seymour (1508–1537)third wife of Henry VIII of England
People named Jane with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Jane is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Jane is most concentrated in Vermont (2.0×), Wisconsin (1.9×), Massachusetts (1.9×), Hawaii (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular girls’ names the year Jane peaked:
Jane elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France girls | Jane | 8,585 | 141st |
| New Zealand girls | Jane | 4,932 | 28th |
| Ireland girls | Jane | 4,805 | 71st |
| Scotland girls | Jane | 2,671 | 40th |
| Norway girls | Jane | 2,405 | 75th |
| England and Wales girls | Jane | 1,244 | 316th |
| Belgium girls | Jane | 394 | 401st |
| Northern Ireland girls | Jane | 303 | 85th |
| Switzerland girls | Jane | 156 | 515th |
| Poland girls | Jane | 6 birth registrations | 729th |
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.
Jane: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Jane | 98 | 0.008% | 592nd |
| French girls | Switzerland | Jane | 55 | 0.013% | 269th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Jane | 3 | 0.005% | 124th |
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, Jane is most concentrated in Zurich, where 0.01% of children were given it – 27 of them.
Jane: rank by region
In 2025, Jane was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Jane | 484 | 10 |
| Wallonia | Jane | 452 | 5 |
In 2018, Jane was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Jane | 10 | 1 |
In 2023, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Jane appears in the lists for Province of Flemish Brabant (189th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names – 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.
Jane by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 4 | 551st |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Jane 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 | Jane | 1,299 | 5,446 |
| Finland girls | Jane | 446 | 746 |
| the Netherlands boys | Jane | 13 | 41 |
Among girls in the Netherlands this is mostly a middle name: of the 5,446 who carry it, 1,299 go by it.
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 Jane lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 610 women called Jane 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | Jane | 110 | 0.107 | 758 |
| Málaga | Jane | 89 | 0.097 | 739 |
| Almería | Jane | 31 | 0.082 | 913 |
| Balears, Illes | Jane | 41 | 0.065 | 1,071 |
| Palmas, Las | Jane | 26 | 0.044 | 1,871 |
| Granada | Jane | 17 | 0.035 | 1,287 |
Listed in 20 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 32 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Jane 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.