Jerome
- Pronunciation
- [Je-rome]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Holy Name
- Origin
- Greek
About the Name Jerome
Jerome derives from the Greek Hieronymos, composed of hieros (holy, sacred) and onoma (name) — yielding the meaning holy name or sacred name. The name reached the Latin West most prominently through Saint Jerome, the fourth-century Church Father who produced the Vulgate translation of the Bible, one of the most influential scholarly works in Christian history. His association gave the name strong ecclesiastical prestige, and it has been in continuous use in Catholic and Orthodox traditions ever since, passing through French Jerome and English Jerome with minimal alteration to its core structure.
A notable bearer is Jerome K. Jerome, the English humorist, novelist, and playwright born on May 2, 1859, in Caldmore, Walsall, Staffordshire, who died on June 14, 1927, in Northampton — the youngest of four children of an unsuccessful businessman, whose work in humor and popular fiction made his name synonymous with a particular strain of gentle English wit.
In US Social Security records, Jerome first entered the male top-1000 in 1935 and reached its peak rank of #93 in 1938, reflecting the pre-war enthusiasm for classical names with Catholic heritage. It maintained a remarkably long presence in the rankings through 2019 — its final tracked year at #912 — accumulating 19,575 top-1000 births across more than eight decades. That longevity is exceptional. Recorded variants include Geronimo, Jairo, Jeronimo, and Jerry — spanning the Spanish Geronimo and Jeronimo to the straightforward nickname Jerry, which has had its own substantial independent career as a given name entirely separate from Jerome.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Jerome
US Popularity History (1935–2019)
Annual US births named Jerome by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1938 with 2,209 boys named Jerome (boy rank #93 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2019, ranked #912 for boys (242 US births). That's 819 places below its 1938 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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Where in the US Is Jerome 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 Jerome the strongest states are Louisiana, Maryland, Kentucky.
Strongest boys-name states
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #1,068 | 50 |
| 2 | North Carolina | #973 | 21 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #937 | 25 |
| 4 | Arizona | #915 | 16 |
| 5 | Georgia | #895 | 46 |
| 6 | Washington | #880 | 32 |
| 7 | Illinois | #878 | 86 |
| 8 | Florida | #862 | 119 |
| 9 | Ohio | #828 | 73 |
| 10 | Indiana | #806 | 27 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Jerome in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Famous People Named Jerome
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Jerome.
- Jerome K. Jerome was a comprehensive biography of Jerome K. Jerome.
Looking for names like Jerome?
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 Jerome to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Jerome against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).