Janis
Meaning
form of Janice, from Jane, 'God is gracious'; famously borne by Janis Joplin
The story
Janis is a spelling of Janice, itself spun from Jane, God is gracious, and it is very much a creature of one era: scarcely seen in the earliest records, it bloomed fast to its great decades in the 1940s and 1950s, then receded almost as quickly. Janis Joplin was born in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas, right inside that boom, and by the time she tore through the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and became rock's rawest, most electrifying voice, the name was already ebbing behind her. Her recording of Me and Bobby McGee reached number one in 1971, a year after her death at twenty-seven, sealing the name's place in music history even as it slipped from the nursery. Today Janis is a rare find in the records, a time-stamped treasure that instantly conjures one incandescent woman and one unrepeatable era.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Janis peaked in the 1940s and the 1950s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
986 people · the #8,371 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 200,000 · median age 34
Among people named Janis living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Janis
Most people given the name Janis in the United States were born between 1940 and 1969. The Janis you meet today is most often in her 60s or 70s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Janis deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Janis truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Janis fits with your family’s names and surname.
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