Jill: Meaning of Baby Name Jill

About the Name Jill

Jill is the medieval English short form of Gillian (itself a variant of Julian), though in modern use it carries its own complete identity. Its meaning reflects the medieval English word jill, which functioned as a generic term for a young woman or sweetheart, much as jack denoted a generic young man. This semantic plainness, far from being a limitation, made Jill feel approachable and unpretentious: it was a name that carried affection without aspiration, projecting warmth and a down-to-earth friendliness.

Jill arrived in the US top-1000 at a moment when short, bright one-syllable feminine names — Ann, Kay, Lynn — were extremely fashionable, offering a crisp alternative to longer, more formal choices. Its nursery-rhyme familiarity (Jack and Jill) gave it an instant cultural recognition that many parents found endearing rather than limiting, and the name flourished during precisely the generation when American parents were drawn to simple, cheerful sounds.

In US Social Security records, Jill first entered the top-1000 in 1957 and peaked at #41 in 1977, accumulating more than 153,000 top-1000 births over its charted span. It exited the chart in 2000 with 215 births at #988. Recorded variants include Jillian, Jillie, and Jilly.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Jill

5,642

English baby names in our dictionary

2,251

English female names

90

4-letter J-names in our dictionary

525

J-female names total

1957–2000

years of US SSA records (28 total)

153,994

total US births named Jill (all years)

US Popularity History (1957–2000)

Annual US births named Jill by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1966 with 7,870 girls named Jill (girl rank #49 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2000, ranked #988 for girls (215 US births). That's 939 places below its 1966 peak.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.

Where in the US Is Jill Most Popular?

Average girl-name rank within each state across 1998–2007 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Jill the strongest states are Minnesota, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania.

Strongest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Minnesota	#567	24
2	Massachusetts	#654	64
3	Pennsylvania	#733	32
4	New Jersey	#745	27
5	Ohio	#853	39
6	Missouri	#910	15
7	Washington	#929	22

Weakest girls-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Washington	#929	22
2	Missouri	#910	15
3	Ohio	#853	39
4	New Jersey	#745	27
5	Pennsylvania	#733	32
6	Massachusetts	#654	64
7	Minnesota	#567	24

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 1998–2007. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Jill in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Jillian	Jove's Child. Variant Of Gillian From The Masculine Julian.	Female	English
Jilly	Abbreviation Of Jillian Or Gillian. Jove's Child.	Female	English

Looking for names like Jill?

A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.

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Compare Jill to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Jill against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Jill vs Olivia 210,124 births since 2014

Jill vs Emma 202,477 births since 2014

Jill vs Sophia 169,709 births since 2014

Jill vs Isabella 158,431 births since 2014

Jill vs Ava 157,356 births since 2014

Jill vs Charlotte 151,872 births since 2014

Jill vs Mia 149,779 births since 2014

Jill vs Amelia 142,728 births since 2014

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