Explore the Family Name Janet

The meaning of Janet

English: from the Middle English male personal names Janot and Jenet, Old French pet forms of Jan or Jen (Old French Jehan), common forms of John. The Old French diminutive suffixes -ot and -et were commonly interchanged.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Janet in the United States?

Based on the Decennial U.S. Census data, the surname Janet has seen a slight decrease in popularity from 2000 to 2010. In 2000, the surname ranked 44,821 and dropped to 48,347 by 2010, representing a change of -7.87%. The count of individuals with this surname also decreased from 451 in 2000 to 437 in 2010, marking a decrease of -3.1%. Furthermore, the proportion per 100k people also fell by -11.76% over the same period.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#44,821	#48,347	-7.87%
Count	451	437	-3.1%
Proportion per 100k	0.17	0.15	-11.76%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Janet

In regards to ethnic identity, the surname Janet has seen some shifts between 2000 and 2010 according to the Decennial U.S. Census data. The percentage of those identifying as Asian/Pacific Islander grew substantially from 1.33% to 2.52%, a jump of 89.47%. Meanwhile, the proportion of people with the Janet surname who identified as White decreased from 80.04% to 74.83%, a shift of -6.51%. Hispanic identification increased from 7.10% to 10.07%, indicating an increase of 41.83%, while Black identification saw a modest rise from 10.64% to 11.67%, which is a growth of 9.68%. There were no changes noted for those identifying as having two or more races or as American Indian and Alaskan Native.

	2000	2010	Change
White	80.04%	74.83%	-6.51%
Black	10.64%	11.67%	9.68%
Hispanic	7.1%	10.07%	41.83%
Asian/Pacific Islander	1.33%	2.52%	89.47%
Two or More Races	0%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%