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Johanna vs Johannes

American parents have registered 54,376 Johannas since 1880, against 2,314 Johanneses. Johanna is still ahead, with 309 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Johanna Johannes

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 2025, when Johanna had 309 and Johannes had 54.

Side by side

  Johanna Johannes
Total US births 54,3762,314
Most in one year 92962
Babies in 2025 30954
Estimated living today 41,0002,100
Median age today 3522
Peak year 19842019
Best rank 265th girls2,228th boys
Rank in 2025 869th2,480th
First recorded 18801913
Girls / boys 54,247 / 1290 / 2,314

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 Johanneses are over 22. That is 13 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 Johanna Johannes
Austria 15,99216,919
France 27,640755
Norway 2,6279,687
Sweden 4,5952,714
Switzerland 1,467377
Belgium 751323
Italy 556490
England and Wales 675336
Scotland 3194
Poland 1524

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: Johanna and Johannes.