Johnson
Johnson reached its high-water mark in 2000 at number 1,214, and has been recorded 7,043 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 3,379th. About 4,500 Johnsons are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 31.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Johnson boys named Johnson
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 7,043
- Estimated living today
- 4,500
- Median age today
- 31
- Peak year
- 2000
- Best rank
- 1,214th
- Rank in 2025
- 3,379th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 22 / 7,021
How old the living Johnsons are
born that year still alive today
Of the 7,043 babies given the name since 1880, about 4,500 are alive — 63 in every hundred. Roughly 1,100 of them are children and 550 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1994 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
Origin a surname
In the U.S.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Johnsons
- Johnson Toribiong (born 1946)Palauan politician and diplomat, president from 2009 to 2013
- Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi (1924–1966)nigerian military leader
- Penny Johnson Jerald (born 1961)American actress
- Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904)American painter
- William Johnson Sollas (1849–1936)British geologist and anthropologist
- Mahama Johnson Traoré (1942–2010)Senegalese film director
People named Johnson with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Johnson is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Johnson is most concentrated in California (3.3×), Arizona (3.1×), South Carolina (2.8×), North Carolina (2.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2000
The most popular boys’ names the year Johnson peaked:
Johnson elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Johnson | 225 | 2,197th |
| England and Wales boys | Johnson | 185 | 1,551st |
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.
Johnson 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Johnson | 10 | 21 |
A count of people on a register – 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.
Related names
Johnson against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
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.