Humanverse

Johanne vs Johnny

American parents have registered 321,696 Johnnys since 1880, against 1,452 Johannes. Johnny is still ahead, with 690 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Johanne 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

Johnny 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 1895, when Johanne had 5 and Johnny had 35.

Side by side

  Johanne Johnny
Total US births 1,452321,696
Most in one year 427,497
Babies in 2025 under 5690
Estimated living today 920216,000
Median age today 5958
Peak year 19391947
Best rank 1,102nd girls49th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked457th
First recorded 18951880
Girls / boys 1,452 / 03,778 / 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.

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 Johanne Johnny
France 5,28515,375
Norway 5,2504,722
Ireland 103531
Scotland 114252
Belgium 40221

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: Johanne and Johnny.