Gene
- Pronunciation
- [Gene]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Abbreviation Of Eugene Wellborn.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Gene
Gene is a short form of Eugene, itself derived from the Greek Eugenios, built on eu ("well") and genos ("born") — meaning "wellborn" or "noble by birth." While Eugene carried the weight of classical education and aristocratic tradition, Gene pared the name down to something immediate and unpretentious, perfectly suited to the mid-twentieth-century American preference for clipped, confident masculinity. The name's single syllable and bright vowel made it feel both energetic and easy to carry.
Notable bearers reflect the name's mid-century cultural prominence. Gene Hackman (born 1930), the American Hall of Fame former actor, earned two Academy Awards — a Best Actor award in 1972 and a Best Supporting Actor award — across a five-decade career that produced multiple defining American film roles. Gene Wilder (born 1933), the American actor, comedian, and screenwriter, is particularly remembered for his lead role as Willy Wonka in Mel Stuart's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory alongside a four-decade career in 1970s American film. Gene Simmons (born 1949), the Israeli-American singer and bassist, co-founded American hard-rock band KISS in 1973 and has continued as its co-lead vocalist through the present. Gene Roddenberry, born Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in El Paso, Texas, in 1921, was the American screenwriter, television producer, and Air Force veteran who created the Star Trek franchise.
Gene first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1926, rose to its peak of #61 in 1937, and last appeared in the top-1000 in 1946 — a window of two decades that captures the name's particular 1930s–40s heyday. Total tracked births reached 59,955. Its recorded variant is Jeno, the Hungarian cognate form of the name.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Gene
US Popularity History (1926–1946)
Annual US births named Gene by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1937 with 3,165 boys named Gene (boy rank #61 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1946, ranked #98 for boys (2,758 US births). That's 37 places below its 1937 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.
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Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeno | Well-Born | Male | Greek |
Famous People Named Gene
4 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Gene.
- Gene Hackman — Movie Actor (1930)
- Gene Roddenberry was an American screenwriter and producer, best known as the creator and writer of the science-fiction show ‘Star Trek’.
- Gene Simmons — Rock Singer (1949)
- Gene Wilder — Movie Actor (1933)
Looking for names like Gene?
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.
Compare Gene to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Gene against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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