Jenna began as a short form of Jennifer, the Cornish form of Guinevere, which is usually explained as "fair one" or "white phantom". It became a name in its own right in the 1980s, when the character Jenna Wade on the TV series Dallas brought it into millions of living rooms. In the United States Jenna was number 63 in 2000, peaked at 45 in 2001 and has since fallen to 679 in 2025.