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Johann vs Johanna

American parents have registered 54,376 Johannas since 1880, against 5,519 Johanns. Johanna is still ahead, with 309 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Johann 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

Johanna 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 2011, when Johann had 210 and Johanna had 563.

Side by side

  Johann Johanna
Total US births 5,51954,376
Most in one year 222929
Babies in 2025 85309
Estimated living today 5,00041,000
Median age today 1835
Peak year 20101984
Best rank 910th boys265th girls
Rank in 2025 1,852nd869th
First recorded 19121880
Girls / boys 650 / 4,86954,247 / 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 Johanns are over 18. 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Johann Johanna
France 19,52527,640
Austria 88415,992
Norway 3752,627
Switzerland 4331,467
Ireland 811,795
England and Wales 280675
Belgium 18751
Scotland 23319
Poland 715

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: Johann and Johanna.