Entry № 4908 · English origin

Jessica Jessica — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ JES-ih-kah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
English
Meaning
"God beholds (Shakespeare's invention; the top US name of the 1980s-90s)"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Early modern (English)

A name that means "god beholds (shakespeare's invention; the top us name of the 1980s-90s)".

Jessica is Shakespeare's invention for the daughter of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1596) — likely from the Hebrew Yiska (Iscah), "to behold," mentioned in Genesis 11:29. Jessica Lange (born 1949) — American actress; two Oscars (Tootsie 1982, Blue Sky 1994); only one other actress (Meryl Streep) has more competitive nominations.

Subject of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

God beholds (Shakespeare's invention; the top US name of the 1980s-90s) — a English name.

The name in its native script.

Jessica
Transliteration
Jessica
Pronunciation
/ ˈdʒɛs.ɪ.kə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Jessica stands.

Jessica does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Jessicas before her.

Real people
Jessica Lange
American Oscar actress.
born 1949
Jessica Chastain
American Oscar actress.
born 1977
Jessica Alba
American actress and Honest Company founder.
born 1981
Jessica Tandy
Oldest Best Actress Oscar winner.
1909 – 1994
In fiction
Jessica
The Merchant of Venice.
1596
Jessica Fletcher
Murder, She Wrote.
1984

Names connected to Jessica.

The number behind Jessica.

3

The Communicator

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Jessica reduce to 3, The Communicator. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.