Jennifer is a Cornish form of the Welsh name Gwynhwyfar (English: Guenivere). It became very popular in England in 1950, and skyrocketed to #1 in the USA in the early 1970s after the movie Love Story came out (the female protagonist's name was Jennifer). When I was in college in the mid 1990s, the guys on campus, when they wanted to get a girl's attention would yell "Hey, JEN!" and 1/2 the time they would get her name right, because it was so monstrously popular! Many books list Jennifer as meaning "white wave," but its meaning is actually more along the lines of "white, smooth, and yielding." See Also: Jenniffer