Jessica (given Name)
Jessica (also Jesica, Jessicah or Jessika) is a female given name.
The oldest written record of the name with its current spelling is found as the name of a character in Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, where it belongs to the daughter of Shylock. The name may have been an Anglicisation of the Biblical Iskah (from the Hebrew: יִסְכָּה : yiskāh), the name of a daughter of Haran briefly mentioned in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. Iskah was rendered "Jeska" in English Bibles available in Shakespeare's day.
The original Hebrew name Yiskāh (יִסְכָּה), means "foresight", or being able to see the potential in the future. The Hebrew root sakhah (ס.כ.ה) means "to see," so the name Yiskah, with the added yod, implies foresight or clairvoyance. Yiskah is the niece of Abraham.
"Jessica" was the most popular female baby name throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, with popularity waning starting in 1998 through the early 2000s and falling out of the Top 20 by 2004. It also rose to # 1 in England and Wales in 2005, dropping to # 3 in 2006. Common abbreviations of the name Jessica include "Jess" and "Jessie."
Read more about Jessica (given Name): Name Variations and Nicknames, Usage in Scotland, People, Fictional Characters