Humanverse

Jonael vs Jonathon

American parents have registered 65,836 Jonathons since 1880, against 649 Jonaels. Jonathon is still ahead, with 119 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jonael against Jonathon, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jonael Jonathon

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

Jonathon has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1912 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2015, when Jonael had 232 and Jonathon had 254.

Side by side

  Jonael Jonathon
Total US births 64965,836
Most in one year 2322,680
Babies in 2025 12119
Estimated living today 64062,000
Median age today 934
Peak year 20151990
Best rank 922nd boys124th boys
Rank in 2025 6,803rd1,486th
First recorded 20041912
Girls / boys 0 / 649224 / 65,612

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 Jonathons alive today are over 34; half the Jonaels are over 9. That is 25 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 Jonael Jonathon
England and Wales 31,245

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: Jonael and Jonathon.