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Johan vs Johanna

American parents have registered 54,376 Johannas since 1880, against 14,788 Johans. But in 2025 it was Johan that was commoner, 516 babies to 309.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Johan against Johanna, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Johan Johanna

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 146 years in which either name was published, Johanna for 138 years and Johan for 8 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Johan Johanna
Total US births 14,78854,376
Most in one year 659929
Babies in 2025 516309
Estimated living today 14,00041,000
Median age today 1335
Peak year 20161984
Best rank 463rd boys265th girls
Rank in 2025 572nd869th
First recorded 19101880
Girls / boys 135 / 14,65354,247 / 129

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 Johannas alive today are over 35; half the Johans are over 13. That is 22 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Johan Johanna
France 35,52027,640
Norway 9,7232,627
Sweden 4,1554,595
Switzerland 4701,467
Ireland 901,795
England and Wales 746675
Belgium 617751
Scotland 75319
Poland 315

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: Johan and Johanna.