Variant spelling of Jamie, from James (Hebrew 'supplanter'); used as a unisex name.
Jayme is a gender-fluid variant that bridges two distinct traditions: it echoes the Spanish Jaime and the Scottish-English Jamie, both of which trace their lineage to James. James derives from the Latin Jacobus, which renders the Hebrew Ya'akov — a name meaning 'he who grasps the heel' or, more figuratively, 'supplanter.' In the biblical narrative, Jacob was born grasping his twin Esau's heel, and the name has carried that sense of determined ambition ever since.
The Spanish form Jaime spread widely through the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, carried by saints and kings. Jaume I of Aragon, known as 'the Conqueror,' is one of medieval Spain's most celebrated monarchs, and the name honors his legacy across Catalan-speaking territories. Meanwhile, the English Jamie gained a warm, approachable reputation — famously associated with Scotland's most beloved poet, Robert Burns, whose works celebrate the everyday Scottish Jamie as everyman and hero.
The Jayme spelling sits at the crossroads of these two streams, blending the visual warmth of the English form with a faintly Latinate finish. It has been embraced especially for girls in the United States since the 1970s, part of a broader trend of feminizing traditionally male names through subtle orthographic shifts. Today Jayme reads as lightly unconventional — familiar enough to feel welcoming, distinctive enough to avoid the crowd.