Is Jalen Rose the original Jalen?

[Celtics2021]

An amusing podcast exploring the origin of the name, and Jalen Rose's claim that he is the OG Jalen.  Our Jaylen Brown, of course, is mentioned briefly.

https://www.espn.com/radio/play/_/id/31349946

It's a fun listen if you have 40 minutes.

[Celtics4ever]

An invented name. In America it was popularized in the 1990s by basketball player Jalen Rose (1973-), whose name was a combination of those of his father James and maternal uncle Leonard [1].

https://www.behindthename.com/name/jalen

JB was born October 24, 1996, I do not know who he was named after or the like.

JB is definitely a better basketball player than Jalen Rose in the NBA

It must be a real slow day in sports for a podcast to be talking about that.

[nickagneta]

Quick search on BR shows Rose was the original Ja(y)len by about a little over a decade

[Moranis]

Rose has told that story for years and I don't think anyone has found a person older than him with the name spelled that exact way, so there is actually a chance he is the first "Jalen".

There are of course similar names in other players like Galen of Greek origin. 

Found some evidence.  If you look at the charts, it doesn't really start being used until Rose became famous in the 90's. 

https://www.first-name.net/jalen

[Celtics2021]

Rose has told that story for years and I don't think anyone has found a person older than him with the name spelled that exact way, so there is actually a chance he is the first "Jalen".

There are of course similar names in other players like Galen of Greek origin. 

Found some evidence.  If you look at the charts, it doesn't really start being used until Rose became famous in the 90's. 

https://www.first-name.net/jalen

If you listen to the podcast, they do the research, and actually do find an older Jalen by about 3 years.  But the conclusion was that all the other Jalens were in fact due to Jalen Rose.  The name was especially popular in Michigan (where Jaylen Brown’s mother is from) and Indiana.