William Shakespeare invented the name Jessica.
William Shakespeare wrote dozens of plays — at least 36, by most counts — and coined nearly as many phrases that are still in use. We wouldn’t call things we don’t understand “Greek to me” were it not for Julius Caesar, wouldn’t refer to jealousy as a “green-eyed monster” without Othello, and wouldn’t find ourselves in a “brave new world” without The Tempest, among other examples. Nor would we have the name Jessica, which the Bard invented around 1597 while writing The Merchant of Venice.
Thought by some to have been derived from Iscah, the name of Abraham’s niece in the Bible, the name Jessica first appeared as the daughter of Shakespeare’s villainous moneylender Shylock. She’s no fan of him, however, and she absconds with a chest of her father’s gold while eloping with Lorenzo against Shylock’s wishes. This betrayal motivates Shylock’s vengeful insistence on exacting a pound of flesh from a Venetian merchant in lieu of the money he owes him.
Jessica was among the most popular names for baby girls throughout the 1970s and ’80s in the U.S., though its popularity in America has waned in the decades since. In England and Wales, however, Jessica was the most popular name for baby girls as recently as 2005.
