Humanverse

Joachim vs Joana

American parents have registered 7,944 Joanas since 1880, against 1,203 Joachims. Joana is still ahead, with 67 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Joachim against Joana, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Joachim Joana

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

Of the 114 years in which either name was published, Joana for 101 years and Joachim for 13 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Joachim Joana
Total US births 1,2037,944
Most in one year 33357
Babies in 2025 2567
Estimated living today 9907,600
Median age today 2325
Peak year 20062001
Best rank 3,227th boys698th girls
Rank in 2025 4,139th2,583rd
First recorded 19121896
Girls / boys 0 / 1,2037,944 / 0

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 Joanas alive today are over 25; half the Joachims are over 23. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Joachim Joana
France 15,1054,900
Belgium 1,675217
Switzerland 2781,363
Poland 1,61311
England and Wales 263329
Ireland 193

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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