The Hoarder's List of Names

Cowboyish short form that's both macho and cool. Got prime time exposure on The West Wing.

There was an eighties cartoon queen named Jem (& The Holograms), and this is as likely to be a full name as a short form – deriving from Jemma, Jemima or Jameela.

This Celtic saint's name is the most offbeat Jen name of all.

This one-time trendy form of Jeremiah hovered just outside the Top 25 throughout the 1970s and 80s.

A biblical place name with trumpeting verve and strength.

The scope of biblical names has expanded to include sacred place-names, and this makes a plausible possibility, though it does have a masculine feel.

A Jackson brother name also associated with the similar-sounding Jemaine, of Flight of the Conchords fame. It has slowly lost its appeal since its peak years in the 1970s.

Jerome has a bespectacled, serious, studious image, just like its namesake saint, who was a brilliant scholar. St. Jerome is the patron saint of students, librarians, and archaeologists.

Once rare, this streamlined form of Jessica has been boosted by two very different television figures: the Jemima Kirke character on HBO series Girls, and reality television daughter Jessa Duggar.

Jessamine, a charming name occasionally heard in England, is just beginning to be appreciated in the U.S. as a possible successor to all the Jess names of the past. It's also spelled Jessamyn, as in Quaker novelist Jessamyn West, author of Friendly Persuasion--who started life with Jessamyn as her middle name.

Jessamy and big sister Jessamine are all but unknown in the U.S., but make distinctive alternatives to overexposed Jessica, Jessie, and Jasmine.