Humanverse

Johnnie vs Johnny

American parents have registered 321,696 Johnnys since 1880, against 151,295 Johnnies. Johnny is still ahead, with 690 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Johnnie against Johnny, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Johnnie Johnny

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, Johnny for 91 years and Johnnie for 55 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Johnnie Johnny
Total US births 151,295321,696
Most in one year 2,9967,497
Babies in 2025 103690
Estimated living today 59,000216,000
Median age today 6858
Peak year 19281947
Best rank 103rd boys49th boys
Rank in 2025 2,284th457th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 49,196 / 102,0993,778 / 317,918

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 Johnnys are over 58. That is 10 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 Johnnie Johnny
France 1515,375
England and Wales 2122,454
Ireland 3531
Scotland 16252
Northern Ireland 6183

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: Johnnie and Johnny.