Jessa

Where Jessa comes from

20th-century coinage from Jessie + feminine suffix -a; compare Jenna from Jenny.
— Wiktionary's entry for Jessa
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1918
    First appearance
    #4,809 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1971
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 1993
    Jessa Rhodes born
    American pornographic actress
  4. 2001
    Jessa Khan born
    Cambodian ju-jitsu practitioner
  5. 2015
    Peak, #544
    572 babies named Jessa — more than any year before or since.
  6. 2018
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #1,057.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name.
Namesakes
  • Jessa Rhodes · American pornographic actress, born 1993
  • Jessa Khan · Cambodian ju-jitsu practitioner, born 2001
  • Jessa Duggar · American reality television participant, born 1992

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.