Humanverse

Jhoana vs Joanna

American parents have registered 112,067 Joannas since 1880, against 622 Jhoanas. Joanna is still ahead, with 997 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jhoana against Joanna, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jhoana Joanna

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Joanna has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2006, when Jhoana had 46 and Joanna had 1,289.

Side by side

  Jhoana Joanna
Total US births 622112,067
Most in one year 463,353
Babies in 2025 7997
Estimated living today 62099,000
Median age today 2037
Peak year 20061984
Best rank 3,469th girls88th girls
Rank in 2025 11,932nd306th
First recorded 19811880
Girls / boys 622 / 0111,761 / 306

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Joannas alive today are over 37; half the Jhoanas are over 20. That is 17 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Jhoana and Joanna.