Jayson
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Healer. Alternate Spelling Of Jason.
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Jayson
Jayson is a modern American spelling variant of Jason (see separate entry on Jason for the Greek Iásōn etymology meaning "healer" — referring to the legendary Greek leader of the Argonauts who led the quest for the Golden Fleece). The Y-spelling Jayson is essentially a 1970s-1980s American invention.
The two spellings (Jayson and Jason) are tracked separately by SSA and represent the same underlying Greek name. The Jayson spelling specifically appeals to parents seeking a more visually distinctive form. Notable bearers include American basketball star Jayson Tatum (Jayson Christopher Tatum, born 1998, the iconic American Boston Celtics NBA forward and 2024 NBA champion — anchoring the name in 2020s American sports memory); American basketball player Jayson Williams (using Williams as a surname); and the contemporary fictional Jayson of various contemporary novels.
Jayson's American climb has been steady: the name climbed into the US top 300 boys' rank by 1990 and held the top 300 since. The name has been driven primarily by African-American naming and the strong Jayson Tatum sports cultural anchor. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the in-built Jason-Greek-mythological pedigree, the popular two-syllable -son ending family (Jayson, Mason, Hudson, Jackson), and the modern visual presence with the distinctive Y-spelling. Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames Jay (the dominant warm short form, casual and warm — also a popular standalone name on its own), and the rare Sonny each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Jason (the historical spelling), Jayson, and Jaeson have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Jason (essentially identical across English/Italian/Spanish), Iásōn (Greek original), Jasone (Italian feminine), and the original Greek Iásōn.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Jayson
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Jayson by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2004 with 963 boys named Jayson (boy rank #319 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #700 for boys (384 US births). That's 381 places below its 2004 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.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Jayson Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Jayson the strongest states are Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Massachusetts | #291 | 180 |
| 2 | Florida | #318 | 550 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #366 | 203 |
| 4 | Connecticut | #386 | 53 |
| 5 | California | #455 | 727 |
| 6 | New York | #479 | 336 |
| 7 | Nevada | #480 | 37 |
| 8 | Mississippi | #500 | 18 |
| 9 | Alabama | #523 | 54 |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | #533 | 174 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Jayson in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Jayson?
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 Jayson to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Jayson against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).