Humanverse

Johana vs Johnnie

American parents have registered 151,295 Johnnies since 1880, against 6,978 Johanas. Johnnie is still ahead, with 103 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Johana 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 130 years and Johana for 16 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Johana Johnnie
Total US births 6,978151,295
Most in one year 3292,996
Babies in 2025 80103
Estimated living today 6,80059,000
Median age today 2168
Peak year 20051928
Best rank 789th girls103rd boys
Rank in 2025 2,276th2,284th
First recorded 19151880
Girls / boys 6,967 / 1149,196 / 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 Johanas are over 21. That is 47 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 Johana Johnnie
France 3,44015
England and Wales 19212
Ireland 33

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: Johana and Johnnie.