Jasper

About Jasper

Jasper has two overlapping attractions: an old personal-name tradition and a gemstone association. The traditional name may ultimately mean “treasurer,” while the English mineral word has a separate history. In English it is pronounced JAS-per; Dutch uses an opening y sound, approximately YAS-per.

A name associated with the Magi

The personal name comes from Latin Gaspar, perhaps through the biblical Hebrew word gizbar, “treasurer,” from Old Persian ganzabarah.

Jasper is among the names traditionally given to one of the Magi, the wise men associated with the visit to the newborn Jesus. That naming belongs to later tradition, rather than providing a personal name stated in the biblical account.

The name has appeared occasionally in the English-speaking world since the Middle Ages. Caspar, Casper, Kasper, and Gaspar are related forms. French Gaspard and Scandinavian Jesper are related forms.

The gemstone

Jasper can also be chosen directly for the stone. The mineral is an opaque variety of finely crystalline quartz and occurs in several colors. It has been used for ornamental objects, giving the word a material association with polished and worked stone.

The gemstone word reached English through French and Latin from Greek iaspis, a word of Semitic origin. That history differs from the proposed “treasurer” origin of the personal name. Modern Jasper can draw on either association, or on the way the two have come together in the same spelling.

The word also appears in ceramics: jasper can mean colored stoneware with raised white decoration. That use adds a crafted, decorative association alongside the natural mineral, while the traditional personal name follows its own earlier history.

Jasper Johns and Flag

Artist Jasper Johns made Flag in 1954–55, using oil paint, collage, and encaustic, a mixture involving melted wax. He worked with pieces of cloth and newsprint on a cut bedsheet mounted on plywood.

The familiar outline of the American flag makes the subject immediately recognizable, but the layered surface also makes the painting visibly a constructed object. Johns continued to revisit ordinary signs and forms, including targets, letters, numbers, maps, and flags.

Flag entered the Museum of Modern Art through a gift from architect Philip Johnson. The work gives Jasper a specific association with twentieth-century American art: a familiar public symbol turned into a painting whose materials and making remain part of what the viewer sees.

Sound and American popularity

English Jasper has two syllables, with stress on JAS. Cas is an established Dutch short form.

In the United States, Jasper rose from 334 boys in 2000 to 1,184 in 2010. It reached #122 in 2023 with 2,944 births, its strongest year in the local series. In 2025 it ranked #129, with 2,804 boys receiving the spelling.

How popular is Jasper?

In 2025, Jasper ranked #129 among boys in the United States, with 2,804 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for boys in 1880; its largest annual count was 2,944 in 2023. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.