Jasper lands in a rare spot for a boy name: rugged and bookish at the same time. It fits a kid who comes home muddy from the creek and it fits a name plate on a gallery wall, and almost everyone can spell it on the first try.
The name traces back to an old Persian word for the official who guarded the royal treasure, and Christian tradition hands it to one of the three wise men, so it carries a quiet biblical thread without sounding devout. The speckled red and green stone is a separate word with separate roots, though centuries of shared spelling have tangled the two together.
Verdict: Jasper is a strong pick for a baby born in 2026. According to Social Security Administration data it ranked 129th for boys in 2025, which is familiar enough that nobody asks you to repeat it and uncommon enough that your son probably will not share it with a classmate.
Jasper Overview
- Meaning: Jasper means bearer of treasure, from a Persian word for a royal treasurer, and its roots are separate from those of the gemstone.
- Gender: A boys’ name in almost every case. According to federal birth records, girls make up about 2 percent of everyone ever registered with the name.
- Origin: Persian, carried into English through the Hebrew gizbar and the Latin Gaspar and Caspar.
- Pronunciation: JAS-per, with the stress on the first syllable.
- Popularity: 129th for boys in 2025 according to Social Security Administration data, and half of all boys on record with the name were born in 2013 or later.
- Nicknames: Jas, Jazz, Jay, Jasp, Jack, Perry, Jep, Jax.
- Variations: Caspar, Casper, Gaspar, Gaspard, Jesper, Kacper.
- Namesakes: Jasper Johns (American painter), Jasper Fforde (British novelist), Jasper Cillessen (Dutch goalkeeper), Jasper Carrott (British comedian), Jasper Conran (British designer).
What Does Jasper Mean?
Jasper means bearer of treasure. The name goes back to the Old Persian ganzabara, the title of the official who carried and guarded a king’s treasure, and it reached English by way of the Hebrew gizbar and the Latin Gaspar (1). A name built on stewardship rather than conquest reads differently from most old boy names, and that is a large part of its appeal.
The stone is a different word with a different history. It comes from the Semitic root behind the Hebrew yashpeh, which became the Greek iaspis and the Old French jaspre, so the two Jaspers only look like relatives. Geologically the stone is an opaque, fine-grained form of chalcedony, which is quartz built from crystals too small to see, carrying as much as 20 percent mineral impurity. Iron oxides and inclusions such as hematite and goethite are what give it the reds, yellows, greens and browns, and what make it opaque instead of glassy. Naming a child Jasper today calls up both pictures at once: the earthy banded stone and the ancient keeper of riches.
Where Does the Name Jasper Come From?
Jasper comes from Persia. It is a name with Persian origins that traveled west through Greek and Latin, surfacing as Iaspar, Gaspar and Caspar before English settled on the J.
Its best known association is Christian, though the name never appears in the Bible itself. Tradition gives the three wise men who visited the infant Jesus the names Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar, and Gaspar is the form that became Jasper in English. That association is why the name has been in steady use in the English-speaking world since the Middle Ages, long before anyone thought of it as vintage.
How Popular Is the Name Jasper?
Jasper is a mainstream boys’ name that is still climbing. According to Social Security Administration data, 2,804 boys were named Jasper in 2025, which put it 129th for the year, or roughly one in 609 boys born (2).
The line is the story. Jasper drifted down through most of the twentieth century, sat low for decades, then turned sharply upward after 2000 and has climbed nearly every year since. Its best showing so far came in 2023, when it reached 122nd and 2,944 boys received it, according to the same federal tables. Hover any year on the chart and you can read the count for yourself.
Across the 146 years the name has appeared in federal data, 62,428 boys have been recorded as Jasper, and per the agency’s own figures half of them were born in 2013 or later. So the typical Jasper alive today is a grade-schooler, not a grandfather, which is worth knowing if you chose the name partly for its old-fashioned sound.
For a parent deciding now, the practical read is this: Jasper is well past the point of sounding dated, and it is not crowded either. In 146 years of records it has never ranked higher than 122nd, so it has never once entered the top 100. That is the band where a name is recognized without being repeated three times per classroom.
How Do I Pronounce Jasper?
JAS-per, two syllables, stress on the first. The a is short, as in jazz, and the second syllable is the same unstressed sound as in whisper.
The J is the only place other languages diverge. Jesper, the Danish and Scandinavian form, takes a Y sound at the front, while Casper, Gaspar and Kacper trade the J for a hard C, G or K. In the US and the UK, though, the J is simply a J, and nobody hesitates over it.
Is Jasper a Boy or Girl Name?
Jasper is a boys’ name in the overwhelming majority of cases, but girls do appear in the record. According to Social Security Administration data, 41 girls were named Jasper in 2025, which ranked 3,672nd on the girls’ list, against 2,804 boys the same year.
Add up every year and the picture is the same: 1,246 girls carry the name in federal records, a little under 2 percent of everyone registered with it. So this is not a unisex name in practice, and it is not a name girls never get either. If you meet a girl named Jasper, she is unusual rather than unheard of, and the nature-word taste that also draws parents to Willow and Hazel is the likeliest reason parents consider it.
Variations of Jasper
Because the name crossed the ancient world before it reached English, nearly every European language kept its own version. These are the ones you are most likely to meet:
- Caspar (Dutch/German)
- Casper (Scandinavian/English)
- Gaspard (French)
- Gaspar (Spanish/Portuguese)
- Jesper (Danish/Scandinavian)
- Kacper (Polish)
Each one traces back to the same Latin Gaspar, so a Dutch Caspar and an American Jasper are, strictly speaking, the same name in different clothes.
Nicknames for Jasper
Jas, Jazz, Jay and Jasp are the everyday shortenings, and Jack is used as a familiar form of the name too. Jasper is short enough that it does not demand a nickname at all, which is part of why so many parents like it.
Common Nicknames:
- Jack
- Jas / Jazz
- Jay
- Jasp
Creative & Rare Nicknames:
- Perry: Pulled from the second syllable instead of the first, which is why it sounds nothing like the full name.
- Jep: A blunt, countryish clip that suits a kid who is always outside.
- Jax: A modern spin on the Jas sound for parents who want something sharper.
Names Similar to Jasper
If Jasper is close but not quite right, these share its mix of vintage roots and easy modern wear. The first few explain why they land in the same category:
- Silas: Same soft s, same overlap of biblical and outdoorsy.
- Felix: Another old-fashioned name back in regular use, 175th for boys in 2025 by Social Security Administration figures.
- Milo: Short, warm, and carries the same two-syllable bounce.
- James: The safe classic if you want the J without the novelty.
- August: Shares the seasonal, slightly antique feel.
- Joseph: A biblical alternative that brings the nickname Joey.
- Oscar: Clunky-cool in exactly the same way.
- Jude: Shorter and a shade edgier.
- Rufus: Blunter, but the same bookish, vintage register.
Names That Moved With Jasper
Set Jasper against every other boys’ name of the last 45 years of federal data and a handful of names turn out to have risen and fallen on almost the same line. This is not a list of sound-alikes. It is evidence about taste: parents drawn to Jasper have tended to be weighing these at the same time, which also makes them sensible sibling pairings. The three closest are the ones plotted here.
- Asher: The closest match of all, and further along the same road. It peaked at 20th in 2022 and sits 28th in 2025, still rising.
- Leo: Reached its best rank, 18th, in 2023 and holds 19th in 2025, and its peak year is 2025.
- Kayson: A newer arrival climbing the same curve from lower down. Its best rank, 264th, is also where it stands in 2025.
- Kash: Rising as well, best at 240th in 2021 and 286th in 2025. Not plotted above.
- Oliver: The same taste taken all the way to the top. Its best rank, 3rd, came in 2019, and it is still 3rd in 2025. Not plotted above.
- Felix: The long view. It already ranked 172nd in 1914, at the early edge of the comparable data, and it is 175th in 2025. Not plotted above.
Middle Names for Jasper
Jasper ends on a soft er, so it takes either a hard one-syllable middle name for contrast or a longer vowel-heavy one for flow. Say each combination out loud with your surname before you commit.
Vintage & Intellectual
These lean into the bookish side of the name.
Short & Punchy
One hard syllable stops the name from floating away.
- Jasper Jude
- Jasper Reid
- Jasper Hayes
- Jasper Flynn
- Jasper Quinn
Earthy & Adventurous
Since Jasper is a stone as well as a name, nature words sit beside it without tipping into costume.
Sibling Names for Jasper
Jasper sets a clear tone, so siblings sound best when they are established names with a little texture rather than either trendy inventions or plain filler. Several of the boys’ names below rose alongside Jasper in the federal data, which is why they sit together so easily.
For a Brother
For a Sister
Famous People Named Jasper
Painters, novelists, athletes and comedians have carried the name, which is one reason it never got locked to a single image.
- Jasper Johns: The American artist who painted Flag in 1954 at the age of 24, according to the Museum of Modern Art, which holds it. He built it from a cut bedsheet, newsprint and encaustic, pigment mixed into melted wax.
- Jasper Fforde: The British novelist behind The Eyre Affair and its literary detective, Thursday Next. A later book in the series, The Well of Lost Plots, won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing.
- Jasper Cillessen: The Dutch goalkeeper who won 65 caps for the Netherlands, kept goal as the team finished third at the 2014 World Cup, and moved from Ajax to Barcelona in 2016.
- Jasper Carrott: The Birmingham comedian, born Robert Davis, who was appointed OBE in 2002 and took the British Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.
- Jasper Conran: The British designer who showed his first womenswear collection in 1978 at 19 and holds an OBE.
Jasper in Pop Culture
Screen Jaspers tend to be either brooding or comic, with very little in between.
- Jasper Hale: The empathic vampire and Edward Cullen’s adopted brother in the Twilight saga, still the reference most parents think of first.
- Jasper: One half of Horace and Jasper, the bumbling henchmen in Disney’s 101 Dalmatians.
- Jasper Sitwell: The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who turns up across the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Jasper Jordan: A main character in the science fiction series The 100.
- Jasper: The antagonist gem in the animated series Steven Universe.
FAQs About the Name Jasper
The questions parents ask most often about this name, answered plainly.
