Jesper

Also Finnish name. Finnish name day October 20.
https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper
https://almanakka.helsinki.fi/en/name-days/name-day-search.html

Usage: Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian (Rare)

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Pronounced: YEHS-bu (Danish), YEHS-peh (Swedish), YEH-spehr (Finnish)

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Meaning: Danish and Swedish form of Gaspar (see JASPER).

Jesper is also used in the Netherlands, at least since the beginning of the 20th century. It took until the early 1980s that the name really started to become popular over there, though. Now there are nearly 5000 Dutchmen who have the name as a first name ("eerste naam") and nearly 800 who have the name as a middle name ("volgnaam").

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Also, the Dutch pronunciation is the same as the Danish one: YES-pər.

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Notable Dutch bearers of the name include the professional racing cyclist Jesper Asselman (b. 1990) and the professional soccer players Jesper Drost (b. 1993) and Jesper Verlaat (b. 1996).

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For more information, please see:

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- http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nvb/naam/is/Jesper (in Dutch; shows the prevalence of the name in the Netherlands in 2014)
- http://www.names.be/jongensnamen.html?met=Jesper&sort=beldesc (in Dutch; shows the prevalence of the name in Belgium in 2009)
- Jesper Asselman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Asselman (in English)
- Jesper Drost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Drost (in English)
- Jesper Verlaat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Verlaat (in English)
- (general): https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?first=Jesper&last=&search=Zoeken
- https://be.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Jesper/+/be-0-Belgi%C3%AB (lists only bearers living in Belgium)
- https://nl.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Jesper/+/nl-0-Nederland (lists only bearers living in the Netherlands).

Also used in Sweden. [noted -ed]

This name is also used in Norway.