Jeans are a kind of pants. That’s all there is to it. The term pants is an umbrella term for clothes that cover both legs separately from waist to ankle and jeans are just one of the many kinds of pants out there. By popular usage, what people call jeans are usually blue jeans which were popularized by Levi Strauss & Co. in 1871. These are made from denim, which is a textile material made from cotton and wool.