Humanverse

Johnny

About 321,696 American babies have been named Johnny since 1880, most of them around 1947. In 2025 it ranked 457th. About 216,000 Johnnys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 58.

Popularity, 1880–2025

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

girls named Johnny boys named Johnny

By the numbers

Total US births
321,696
Estimated living today
216,000
Median age today
58
Peak year
1947
Best rank
49th
Rank in 2025
457th
First recorded
1880
Girls / boys
3,778 / 317,918

How old the living Johnnys are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 321,696 babies given the name since 1880, about 216,000 are alive — 67 in every hundred. Roughly 18,000 of them are children and 81,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1967 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

. In the sense of an Englishman, compare John Bull.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Johnnys

People named Johnny with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Johnny is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Johnny is most concentrated in Mississippi (3.3×), Alabama (2.9×), New Mexico (2.9×), Arkansas (2.8×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1947

The most popular boys’ names the year Johnny peaked:

All the names of 1947

Johnny elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France boys Johnny 15,375 115th
Norway boys Johnny 4,722 44th
England and Wales boys Johnny 2,454 377th
Ireland boys Johnny 531 171st
Italy boys Johnny 322
Scotland boys Johnny 252 287th
Belgium boys Johnny 221 285th
Northern Ireland boys Johnny 183 178th
Switzerland boys Johnny 116 599th
Poland boys Johnny 7 birth registrations 510th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Johnny: births by region

RegionCountry Spelling BirthsShare of the region Best rank
German boys Switzerland Johnny 86 0.007% 609th
French boys Switzerland Johnny 22 0.005% 320th
Italian boys Switzerland Johnny 7 0.011% 177th
Romansh boys Switzerland Johnny 1 0.027% 22nd

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

Johnny: rank by region

In 2007, Johnny was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

Region Spelling Place Children
Wallonia Johnny 404 6

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Johnny by city

CityYears BirthsBest rank
Berlin boys 2017–2023 69 253rd

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Johnny among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

Country Spelling First forename Any forename
the Netherlands boys Johnny 5,981 6,960
Finland boys Johnny 660 861
the Netherlands girls Johnny 7 42

A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Where Johnny lives in Spain

Not a count of births but of people: 486 men called Johnny were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.

Men: the provinces where it is densest

Province Spelling People Per thousand Place there
Araba/Álava Johnny 8 0.048 1,218
Málaga Johnny 35 0.040 1,294
Alicante/Alacant Johnny 40 0.040 1,592
Ourense Johnny 5 0.034 1,197
Santa Cruz de Tenerife Johnny 18 0.034 2,227
Pontevedra Johnny 14 0.031 1,241

Listed in 24 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 28 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.

Related names

Johnny against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Johnny with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.