Jeanette

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Janet in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 16 more, ג'נט in FR France, IL Israel, Jennet in TM Turkmenistan, CR Costa Rica and Дженнет in RU Russia.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Jeanette is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Spanish given name227K records spelled Jeanette6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Chile, Mexico

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian

  Also written Jeañette, Jeanetté

• a separate given name115K records spelled Jeanette2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

  Also written Jean-Ette

• Polish given name10K records spelled Jeanette24 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Poland, Czechia, United Kingdom

  Languages: Polish, Czech, Russian

  Also written Jeannette, Janette, Жанетт, Zhanett, Zsanett

• Chinese given name6.2K records spelled Jeanette2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Switzerland

  Also written Jeannette

• Finnish given name5.2K records spelled Jeanette3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Finland, United States, Sweden, United Kingdom

  Languages: Finnish, Estonian

  Also written Jëãñëttè

67 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Jeanette is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• North American form of French Jeanet, a pet form of Jean, French form of John.

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• In Swedish, Jeanette (m.fl. former) är ett franskt namn, en diminutivform (se Inledning) av Jeanne (→ Johanna). I den rikssvenska almanackan 29 maj och i den finlandssvenska 15 november.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• Pet form of jeanne. Also: Jeannette.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• In Danish, a female given name derived from French Jeannette, popular in the 1960s and the 1970s

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Swedish, a female given name, a popular Swedish spelling of the French Jeannette

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Jennie Jeromeb. 1854USnot in their usual nameAmerican-born British mother of Winston Churchill (1854–1921)
• Jeanette MacDonaldb. 1903USAmerican singer and actress (1903-1965)
• Jeanette Nolanb. 1911USAmerican actress (1911–1998)
• Kiri Te Kanawab. 1944NZnot in their usual nameNew Zealand opera singer
• Jeanette Wintersonb. 1959GBEnglish writer
• Jeanette Hainb. 1969DEGerman actress and screen writer
• Jeanette J. Eppsb. 1970USAmerican aerospace engineer and NASA astronaut (born 1970)
• Carina Dahlb. 1985NOnot in their usual nameNorwegian singer
• AJ Leeb. 1987USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler and author
• Missy Franklinb. 1995USnot in their usual nameAmerican swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, world champion, world record-holder

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,059 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Jeanette?

We estimate roughly 473 thousand people bear Jeanette (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.

In which country does Jeanette have the most bearers?

Jeanette is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled janet.

How common is Jeanette compared with other names?

In the United Kingdom, Jeanette is the 51st most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.

Is Jeanette a male or female name?

Jeanette is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.

What does the name Jeanette mean?

Recorded meaning: Variant spelling of Jeannette, in the 1920s and 30s associated particularly with the singer and film star Jeanette MacDonald (1902-65).