Humanverse

Johnathan vs Johnpaul

American parents have registered 98,611 Johnathans since 1880, against 6,060 Johnpauls. Johnathan is still ahead, with 594 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Johnathan against Johnpaul, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Johnathan Johnpaul

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

Johnathan has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1881 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2025, when Johnathan had 594 and Johnpaul had 101.

Side by side

  Johnathan Johnpaul
Total US births 98,6116,060
Most in one year 3,253273
Babies in 2025 594101
Estimated living today 94,0005,900
Median age today 2922
Peak year 19902005
Best rank 108th boys739th boys
Rank in 2025 508th1,654th
First recorded 18811960
Girls / boys 349 / 98,2620 / 6,060

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 Johnathans alive today are over 29; half the Johnpauls are over 22. That is 7 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 Johnathan Johnpaul
England and Wales 94576
Ireland 24078 John Paul
Scotland 3053

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: Johnathan and Johnpaul.