Jemima
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A classic biblical name of Hebrew origin, Jemima means "dove," a symbol of peace and hope (Biblical Names Compiled Database)
A female name· listed as female by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 42 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/xemima/(machine-generated) Spanish · model-generated
Jemima is a female given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country. Jemima is also written ጀማ in Ethiopic, ג'מה in Hebrew and 젬마 in Korean (Hangul).
- GHGhana≈1 in 9.3Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- PYParaguay≈1 in 28Kfew records
- NGNigeria≈1 in 30K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Jemima itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 374 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 9.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈150,000 named Gemma, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Jemima in other scripts: Latin, Ethiopic, Hebrew and 3 more
(measured from records)Locally spelled Gemma in GB United Kingdom, PH Philippines, US United States and 3 more and Jema in IN India.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
How to pronounce Jemima
- Spanish:/xemima/(machine-generated) model-generated
- Swahili:/ʄemima/(machine-generated) model-generated
- Portuguese:/ʒɛmimɐ/(machine-generated) model-generated
Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A classic biblical name of Hebrew origin, Jemima means "dove," a symbol of peace and hope. Jemima was the eldest daughter of Job, celebrated in the Bible with her sisters as the most beautiful women in the land and as recipients of an inheritance, representing blessing, beauty, and grace.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Jemima, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Jemima counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #179 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 782 | — | Gemma | 118 |
| GB United Kingdom | #162 | ≈63,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 4 | Gemma | 327 |
| IN India | — | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 34K | 878 | Jema | 40 |
| ES Spain | #591 | 30,784as Gemma | 1 in 1.6K | 31K | Gemma | 157 |
| US United States | — | 19,024as Gemma | 1 in 17K | 19K | Gemma | 374 |
| AU Australia | #257 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | 90 | Gemma | 239 |
| GH Ghana | #247 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 9.3K | — | Jemima | 41 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,875 | 1 in 113K | 1.9K | Jemima | 70 |
| IE Ireland | #251 | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | 13 | Gemma | 107 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses
(measured from records)Jemima is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
The Hebrew name Jemimah (יְמִימָה) is most commonly understood to mean "dove". Some scholars also suggest alternative meanings, such as "daylight" or "bright as the day," derived from the Hebrew word 'yom' (day).
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Biblical name (meaning ‘dove’ or ‘bright as day’ in Hebrew}, borne by the eldest of the daughters of Job, born to him towards the end of his life when his prosperity had been restored (Job 42:14). The name is recorded from the early 1700s in England, and became common in the first part of the r9th century. It has continued steadily in modern use since then.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Hebrew name meaning "dove"
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, aus der Bibel übernommener weibl.
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Yoruba, It means God is with us
as a wordYorubaName Dictionary (CC0, tone-marked Yoruba names with meaning/etymology)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Jemma Redgraveb. 1965GBnot in their usual nameBritish actress
- Jemima Rooperb. 1981GBBritish actress
- Jemima Kirkeb. 1985GBBritish-American artist and actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them
(machine-generated)A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence
(measured from records)69 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 42 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Jemima mean, and where does it come from?
- A classic biblical name of Hebrew origin, Jemima means "dove," a symbol of peace and hope. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- Is Jemima a male or female name?
- Jemima is a female name. National registers that list it by sex list it as female: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), Brazil (IBGE, 2022), Spain (INE) and Netherlands (Meertens NVB), among others.
- Which countries have the most people named Jemima?
- Mondonomo estimates about 148 thousand people named Gemma in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold. After it come United Kingdom, India, Spain and United States; the country table on this page ranks them.
- What are other forms of the name Jemima?
- In the etymology graph, Yemima is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Jemima?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 1,875 people named Jemima in 2022, about 1 in 113 thousand residents.
- How common is Jemima compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Jemima is the 179th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Jemima?
- It depends on the language: in Spanish /xemima/; in Swahili /ʄemima/; in Portuguese /ʒɛmimɐ/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
What do you want to know about Jemima?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/jemimaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Jemima” — the 179th most common given name in the Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.