Jeffrey - Meaning of Jeffrey

What does Jeffrey mean?

[ 2 syll. jef-frey, je-ffr-ey ] The baby boy name Jeffrey is pronounced JHEHFRiy- †. Jeffrey is of Germanic origin and it is used mainly in the English language.

In addition, Jeffrey is an English variant spelling of Geoffrey (English and German).

Jeffrey is a widely used name; it has 48 variant transcriptions that are used in English and foreign languages. Variation transcriptions used in English include Geoff, Geoffry, Geofrey, Geofry, Godfry, Jefery, Jefferey, Jefferies, Jeffery, Jeffie, Jeffre, Jeffree, Jeffri, Jeffrie, Jeffries, Jeffroi, Jeffry, Jefre, Jefri, Jefry, Joffre, and Joffrey. The short form Jeff, and the pet form Jeffy are other English variants.

Foreign variant transcriptions of Jeffrey include Bogomir (Slavic), Fred (Polish), Fredo (Spanish), Frici (Hungarian), Friedl (German), Geoffroi (French), Geoffroy (French), Geofredo (Italian), Geofri (Romanian), Giotto (Italian), Godfrey (German), Godofredo (Spanish), Godoired (Romanian), Gofredo (Spanish), Gotfrid (Russian), Gotfrids (Latvian), Gotfryd (Polish), Gottfrid (Hungarian), Gottfried (German), Jeoffroi (French), Sheary (Irish), Sheron (Irish), and Sieffre (Welsh).

Variant forms inherit both the origin and meaning of Jeffrey.

See also the related form, Jefferson (English).

See also the related categories, english and germanic (german).

Jeffrey is fairly popular as a baby name for boys. The name's popularity rose from the 1930s up to the 1960s; before that, it was of only very modest use. At the height of its usage in 1966, 1.661% of baby boys were given the name Jeffrey. Its ranking then was #9. The baby name has since experienced a marked decline in popularity. In 2018, it ranked at #331 with a usage of 0.052%, but it was nonetheless the most popular within all boy names in its group. Jeffrey was thrice as popular as the next most popular name, Jefferson, in 2018. Jeffrey has predominantly been a baby boy name, although in the past century it has also been used for girls. Jeffrey as a baby boy name outnumbered its use as girl name by 206 times in 1970.

Baby names that sound like Jeffrey include Jeffery, Jeffree, Jeffri, Jeffrie, Jeffry, Jefri, Jefry, Geoffrey, Geoffry, Jaafar, Jaaffar, Jabaar, Jabahri, Jabar, Jabare, Jabbar, Jabear, Jabeer, Jabeir, and Jaber.

† Pronunciation for Jeffrey: JH as in "joy (JH.OY)" ; EH as in "ebb (EH.B)" ; F as in "fee (F.IY)" ; R as in "race (R.EY.S)" ; IY as in "eat (IY.T)"