Humanverse

Johan vs Johnnie

American parents have registered 151,295 Johnnies since 1880, against 14,788 Johans. But in 2025 it was Johan that was commoner, 516 babies to 103.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Johan against Johnnie, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Johan Johnnie

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, Johnnie for 121 years and Johan for 25 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Johan Johnnie
Total US births 14,788151,295
Most in one year 6592,996
Babies in 2025 516103
Estimated living today 14,00059,000
Median age today 1368
Peak year 20161928
Best rank 463rd boys103rd boys
Rank in 2025 572nd2,284th
First recorded 19101880
Girls / boys 135 / 14,65349,196 / 102,099

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 Johnnies alive today are over 68; half the Johans are over 13. That is 55 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 Johnnie
France 35,52015
England and Wales 746212
Ireland 903
Scotland 7516

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 Johnnie.