Is National Jessica Day a public holiday?

No. It is an unofficial observance, not a federal or public holiday, so businesses and schools stay open.

Who started National Jessica Day?

No one is on record. The day circulates on social media and informal holiday lists with no documented founder, organization, or first observance.

Did Shakespeare really invent the name Jessica?

The oldest written record of the name is the character in The Merchant of Venice, around 1596, so Shakespeare is widely credited with coining it. He likely reworked the biblical name Iscah.

What does the name Jessica mean?

It is usually traced to the Hebrew Iscah, often read as 'to behold,' though scholars now regard the exact meaning as uncertain. A minority theory links it to 'jess,' a falconry term.

How popular is the name Jessica now?

Far less than at its peak. After topping the US charts in the early 1990s, it fell out of the top 100 by 2010 and ranked 399th by 2020.

National Jessica Day

Next celebratedThursday, February 25, 2027

A name-day observance on February 25 honoring people named Jessica and the name's literary origins and cultural reach.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated March 22, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEFebruary 25

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A name day with no documented author.

No documented founder or formal establishment record has been identified for National Jessica Day. The observance circulates on informal holiday-listing sites and social media on February 25 as a way to recognize people named Jessica.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

The name a playwright made up that conquered the charts

Most names drift into use over centuries, their first speaker lost. Jessica has a known author. The name appears for the first time in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, written around 1596, where it belongs to the daughter of the moneylender Shylock.

National Jessica Day honors that name and the people who carry it. The twist worth pausing on: an Elizabethan invention sat almost unused for three hundred years, then topped the American baby-name charts for years running in the 1980s and 1990s.

That is the rare arc this day really marks. A made-up word from a four-hundred-year-old play, given to millions of real people, then quietly handed back to the past.

ORIGINS

Jessica Day history

INTRODUCTION

Walk into any American workplace and the Jessicas cluster by age. The name barely registered before the 1960s, then surged so hard that a single school grade could hold three or four of them. The question worth asking is how a word that sat unused for centuries suddenly belonged to almost everyone.

The answer runs backward to a name that, strictly speaking, no one had before a playwright wrote it down.

CHAPTER 01

A character before a name

Jessica enters the record as Shylock's daughter in Shakespeare's Venice. She elopes with the Christian Lorenzo, slips out in a boy's disguise, and carries off a casket of her father's gold ducats.

It is a small role. She speaks only about 660 words in the whole play. Her exit is still the spark that drives Shylock toward his ruinous demand for a pound of flesh.

CHAPTER 02

Borrowed from a single line of Genesis

Shakespeare did not invent the sound from nothing. Scholars believe he anglicized Iscah, a figure named just once in the Book of Genesis as the daughter of Haran and niece of Abraham.

In the Bibles of his day that name was printed as Iesca or Jeska. Its Hebrew root is usually read as "to behold," though scholars now call the exact meaning uncertain rather than settled.

CHAPTER 03

Three centuries quiet, then everywhere

For generations the name went almost nowhere. By Behind the Name's account it was not commonly used until the middle of the twentieth century. The play was famous; the name was not.

Then American parents found it. Jessica reached the U.S. top three by 1980 and number one in 1990, returning to the top spot in 1993, 1994, and 1995.

The fall was as steep as the climb. The name slid out of the top 100 by 2010 and down to 399th by 2020. National Jessica Day belongs to that long tail, with a February 25 date and no founder on record.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Jessica Day by the Numbers

2.987%: Peak US share of baby girls, 1987
2005: Year Jessica topped England and Wales
#399: US name rank reached by 2020
~1596: Year Shakespeare coined the name

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Jessica Day

AUTHORSHIP

One play, one playwright, millions of namesakes.

Few common English given names can be traced to a single writer and a single work, but Jessica can. That makes the day a small, living footnote to one of the most performed plays in the language.

GENERATION

A marker of when you were born

The name clustered so tightly in the 1980s and 1990s that it now works as a rough birth-decade signal. A room of Jessicas usually shares a coming-of-age era as much as a name.

REACH

Shakespeare's word, topping British charts

The name did not stop at American borders. It rose to the most popular girls' name in England and Wales in 2005, a coinage from an English play leading the charts in the playwright's own country four centuries later.

GOOD TO KNOW

Jessicas who made a mark

Jessica Lange

An actress born in 1949, decades before the name's boom, with a long award-winning screen career.

Jessica Chastain

Earned Academy Award nominations for The Help and Zero Dark Thirty.

Jessica Alba

The actress co-founded the consumer-goods firm The Honest Company in 2011, which went public in 2021.

Jessica Ennis-Hill

Won the 2012 Olympic heptathlon with a British and Commonwealth record of 6,955 points.

Jessica Watson

The Australian sailor was named Young Australian of the Year in 2011 after circling the globe solo.

Jessica Rabbit and friends

Fiction keeps reinventing the name, from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to Murder, She Wrote and Marvel's Jessica Jones.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Shakespeare coins the name

Jessica appears for the first time as Shylock's daughter in The Merchant of Venice, the oldest written record of the name.

Jessica reaches the US top three

The name climbs to third on the US charts, signaling its surge into the upper ranks.

Jessica hits number one

It becomes the most popular US girls' name for the first time, a spot it also held in 1993, 1994, and 1995.

Number one in England and Wales

The name tops the girls' charts across England and Wales, decades after its American peak.

A Jessica era in pop culture

Jessica Alba's Honest Company launches and Zooey Deschanel's Jess Day debuts on New Girl in the same year.

The long decline

Jessica falls to 399th on the US charts, far below its 1990s dominance.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Jessica Day

Read the scene that started it all

Open The Merchant of Venice to Act 2, Scene 3, where Jessica first speaks. The passage is short and introduces the character whose name millions would later share.

CHART

Chart the name's rise and fall

Use the Social Security Administration's baby-name tool to plot Jessica across the decades. The curve is one of the steepest climbs and drops in the data.

LOOK