The series revolves around Jerry's misadventures with his best friend George Costanza, neighbor Cosmo Kramer, and ex-girlfriend Elaine Benes.

Jerry is the only main character on the show to maintain the same career (a stand-up comedian, like the real Seinfeld) throughout the series.

Jerry is generally indifferent to what goes on in his friends' lives, seeing their misery as merely an entertaining distraction, as well as an opportunity for joke material.

Jerry, George and Elaine all share a general trait of not letting go of other characters' remarks and going to great lengths to be proven right.

[9] Despite his usual indifference to his friends and their actions, Jerry apparently is very satisfied with his life, and feels worried about anything that might threaten the group lifestyle.

Once Elaine tells him that she is also "getting out" of the group, Jerry becomes so worried about a near future of just him and Kramer that he unknowingly almost walks into a car while crossing the street.

In "The Opposite", this tendency is explicitly pointed out, as Jerry goes through a number of experiences after which he invariably "breaks even", while his friends are going through intense periods of success or failure.

In the series finale, Jerry's streak of getting away with things is broken when he, and the rest of the group, are arrested for their indifference toward a mugging victim and sentenced to jail after multiple witnesses testify to their poor character.

In "The Pothole", Jerry inadvertently knocks his girlfriend's toothbrush into the toilet bowl, and after she uses it, he is unable to bring himself to kiss her.

Although born and raised Jewish and he considers himself a Jew, Jerry apparently does not practice and generally does not observe many traditions.

Uncle Leo has a son, Cousin Jeffrey, who works for the parks department, about whom he constantly talks, but who never appears.

In the same episode, Jerry references having an Aunt Rose, and Helen mentions a family member named Claire who is getting married.

Jerry's maternal grandmother, Nana, is an elderly woman with memory problems, occasionally unable to tell the past from the present, living alone in the city.

In 2007, Entertainment Weekly placed the Jerry Seinfeld character eighth on their list of the "50 Greatest TV icons".

[12] For his portrayal, Jerry Seinfeld was nominated four times for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy, out of which he won one,[13] along with being nominated five times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, for which he never won.