The given name Juniper is either in reference to the English common name for the juniper tree or berry, or in reference to a derivation of the Welsh name Guinevere. Juniper has historically been used as both a boys' name and a girls' name.
In 2011, Juniper entered the top 1000 list of given names in the United States for the first time and is quickly becoming a popular girls' name likely due to the popularity of a wide assortment of well-known fictional works, including the cartoon series The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, the movie Benny & Joon (where the Joon character was short for Juniper), Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and the Donovan song, "Jennifer Juniper".
The juniper tree's name is derived from the Latin word juniperus. In Latin, juniperus is combination of the word junio, which means young, and parere, to produce, hence youth producing, or evergreen.<ref>University of Vermont: Derivation of Scientific Names The names Genefer, Jenefer and Jinifer (all old English variants for juniper), Richard Oliver Heslop, Northumberland Words , 1892–94: see Ginifer & Jinifer.Ernest Weekley, Words and Names, Page 24.</ref> Ginepro (Italian for Juniper), Ginevra (Italian variant form of Juniper), and Ginny are other names that also refer to the juniper tree.
Juniper is used to flavour the alcoholic spirit gin. The traditional drink jenever and its French name genièvre are names for juniper. The French name was shortened to geneva, sounding the same as the place name, and further abbreviated to 'gin'.
Another name which was originally unrelated is the British name Guinevere (Guenièvre in French), a variant Old French spelling of Gwenhwyfar, which in Welsh is a combination of the word gwen (mod. gwyn) which means "white" or "fair" and hwyfar which means a "spirit" or "fairy". This is also the origin of Jennifer, another name that sounds similar to Juniper. Because the Latin Juniperus family of names are the same or very similar-sounding to the Welsh Guinevere family of names, it is very difficult to determine, for names that begin with gin-, jen-, or jun-, which family they ultimately originated with.
Common nicknames of Juniper
Pepper or other diminutives based on the last syllable
June or other diminutives based on the initial syllable
Ginny: The name for the spirit gin is an English derivation of the Dutch word for Juniper: genever. This nickname is either in reference to gin, or similarly, when something is said to taste like juniper berries, it is said to be "ginny" tasting. Jenny: More so in England, where in some places it is pronounced "jenny-per" Nip or Nipper: While the origin of the usage of "nip" to refer to a drink or a glass of an alcoholic beverage actually comes from the rare term nipperkin [small measure], a folk etymology has that it originally referred to a nip of gin, with the "nip" being a shortening of juniper.