`J´ Names That I Like - Girls & Boys

A sweet name with many cross-cultural ties: it's an equivalent of Jane in languages including Czech, Slovak, Dutch, German, Slovene, Catalan, Estonian, and Latvian.

Jerry is one of those short forms that, like Mike and Debbie, rose to popularity on the coattails of their formal versions. The equivalents today are nickname names like Ellie and Theo.

This variation of Jordan entered the Top 1000 in 1989. Jordyn as well as Jordan trended throughout the 90s and early 2000s, but are beginning to fall slightly on the girls' side. While the Jordan spelling reached the highest point in popularity out of the 2, making it into the Top 50 in the late 90s and early 2000s, today Jordyn has taken the lead.

This spelling of Jillian is now much more popular than the original, maybe because the G version invites pronunciation problems.

Streamlined version of the classic boys' names, sometimes a short form of Jonathan, which is in fact an entirely different name from John attached to a different Biblical personage. Jon feels more modern than the traditional John, but some may find it an overly slight variation on an already slim name. Jon Snow is a popular character on HBO's Game of Thrones.

Joah is a simple but obscure Biblical name, the name of four men in the Old Testament. Joah could be the perfect way to honor Grandpa Joe, or might be seen as a streamlined alternative to Josiah. Joah has so much basic appeal, in fact, that it just might be the next Noah.

A Top 100 name from the 1930s all the way through the 1950s, it's now firmly in Mom -- or Grandma -- land and supplanted for babies by Joanna.....or even great-grandmother Josephine. In its heyday, it had a host of variations, including JoAnn and Jo-Anne.

Long used in Spanish-speaking countries, this strong but feminine name was jump-started here by the rise of actress Jada Pinkett Smith. The Italian Giada is a popular variation. In the Bible, the name Jada was borne by a man and has a different root and meaning: It's Hebrew and means "he knows".

Once rare, this streamlined form of Jessica has been boosted by two very different television figures: the Jemima Kirke character on HBO series Girls, and reality television daughter Jessa Duggar.

Judd is a strong but sensitive short form that can easily stand on its own, the second 'd' giving it a lot more substance, and it would also be a good middle name choice. Two recent actors have given it credence--Judd Nelson and Judd Hirsch, and now it's most noticeably represented by comedy director Judd Apatow.

The Jodie spelling might be even more obscure, at this point, than the fading original, except actresses Jodie Foster and Jodie Sweetin have kept it in the public eye.

Thanks to two cultural influences, January has joined March, April, June and August as a plausible month name.

Jackie Kennedy gave this name a lot of style, but it doesn't seem destined for a comeback the way brother name Jack has. Jackie and Jacqueline both peaked in 1961.

For a minute or two this sounded more modern than Janet, now equally outmoded.

At the height of the Jennifer craze, many parents were cutting straight to the nickname and putting Jenny on the birth certificate. But now that Jennifer is the mom rather than the daughter, Jenny, which has been somewhat replaced by Jenna, has faded as well.

Both Jeb and Jed are very attractive Old Testament short forms with long and bright futures. Jeb's main current association is with the Bush brother and former governor of Florida, but the name was a mainstay on early TV westerns, and then went upscale as the nickname (his birth name being Josiah) of the President on "The West Wing."

Peaked in the 1940s, but still an amiable classic, a la Joe and Tom -- though rarely used on its own.

The name of the third U.S. President sounds, like Harrison and Jackson, more modern and stylish now than its root name. Used as a first name long before our surname-crazed era, Jefferson was most famously used as a first name by the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, which may justifiably make you not want to use it. Jefferson is the middle name of another Prez, William Clinton.

A modern invention that's been in use since the 80s and in the charts since the 90s, which combines the sounds of Jasmine (or Jasper or just the word jazz) with the popular suffix, -lyn. Inspiration might also have come from Joslyn, Jocelyn, or Roslyn. Trendy but snazzy too, Jazlyn remains in the US Top 600.

From obscure male biblical boy's name to unisex favorite, Jadon/Jaden, in all its variations, has had a meteoric rise in popularity, building on Jade and Jada, plus the trendy en ending.