Janis is a variant of Janice — a 20th-century American elaboration of Jane, from the Hebrew Yochanan ("God is gracious"). Janis Joplin (1943-1970) — *American singer whose 1969 Woodstock performance and her psychedelic blues-rock vocals on Piece of My Heart, Me and Bobby McGee, and Cry Baby defined the female counterculture voice of the 1960s. The first major female rock star inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1995); posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2005). Died of accidental heroin overdose at 27 in Hollywood. Janis Ian (born 1951) — American singer-songwriter; her 1975 song At Seventeen won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance and her Society's Child* (1965), about an interracial relationship, was a teenage triumph.
Subject of Amy Berg's Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015 documentary).
In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Janis reduce to 8, The Visionary. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.