Humanverse

Johnathan vs Johny

American parents have registered 98,611 Johnathans since 1880, against 3,597 Johnys. Johnathan is still ahead, with 594 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Johnathan Johny

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

Of the 129 years in which either name was published, Johnathan for 79 years and Johny for 50 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Johnathan Johny
Total US births 98,6113,597
Most in one year 3,25378
Babies in 2025 5945
Estimated living today 94,0002,000
Median age today 2935
Peak year 19901929
Best rank 108th boys763rd boys
Rank in 2025 508th12,008th
First recorded 18811888
Girls / boys 349 / 98,26226 / 3,571

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 Johnys alive today are over 35; half the Johnathans are over 29. That is 6 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 Johny
France 2352,195
England and Wales 94545

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 Johny.