Jeffrey

Where Jeffrey comes from

Variant of Geoffrey.
— Wiktionary's entry for Jeffrey
  • Germanic
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1885
    First appearance
    #936 among boys, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1953
    Jeffrey Epstein born
    American sex offender and financier
  3. 1960
    Jeffrey Dahmer born
    American serial killer
  4. 1966
    Peak, #9
    30,200 babies named Jeffrey — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1984
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #28.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from the Germanic languages, the usual U.S. spelling of Geoffrey. Popular in the latter half of the 20th century.
Namesakes
  • Jeffrey Epstein · American sex offender and financier, 1953–2019
  • Jeffrey Dahmer · American serial killer, 1960–1994
  • Jeffrey Sachs · American economist, born 1954
  • Jeffrey C. Hall · American geneticist and chronobiologist, born 1945
  • Jeffrey Dean Morgan · American actor, born 1966

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.