John
About 5,204,377 American babies have been named John since 1880, most of them around 1947. In 2025 it ranked 23rd. About 2.7 million Johns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 59.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named John boys named John
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 5,204,377
- Estimated living today
- 2.7 million
- Median age today
- 59
- Peak year
- 1947
- Best rank
- 3rd
- Rank in 2025
- 23rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 21,744 / 5,182,633
How old the living Johns are
born that year still alive today
Of the 5,204,377 babies given the name since 1880, about 2.7 million are alive — 53 in every hundred. Roughly 175,000 of them are children and 1 million are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1966 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin the Bible, from Hebrew
From Middle English John, Johan, Johannes, from Anglo-Norman Jehan, Johan, and also Old English Iohannes, both from Latin Iōhannēs, variant of Latin Iōannēs, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης, from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן, perhaps contracted from a former יְהוֹחָנָן (“God is gracious”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Johns
- John F. Kennedy (1917–1963)president of the United States from 1961 to 1963
- John Paul II (1920–2005)264th pope of the Catholic Church
- John Locke (1632–1704)English philosopher and physician
- John Adams (1735–1826)Founding Father, U.S. president from 1797 to 1801
- John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)British economist
- John Lennon (1940–1980)British musician
- John Quincy Adams (1767–1848)President of the United States from 1825 to 1829
- John Milton (1608–1674)English poet and civil servant
People named John with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where John is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, John is most concentrated in Massachusetts (1.6×), Rhode Island (1.6×), Pennsylvania (1.6×), the District of Columbia (1.6×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1947
The most popular boys’ names the year John peaked:
John elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland boys | John | 73,225 | 1st |
| Scotland boys | John | 29,177 | 2nd |
| New Zealand boys | John | 27,114 | 1st |
| England and Wales boys | John | 22,533 | 46th |
| Norway boys | John | 18,033 | 15th |
| France boys | John | 14,540 | 142nd |
| Sweden boys | John | 3,898 | 58th |
| Northern Ireland boys | John | 2,373 | 17th |
| Switzerland boys | John | 927 | 143rd |
| Belgium boys | John | 685 | 257th |
| Italy boys | John | 353 | — |
| Poland boys | John | 328 birth registrations | 208th |
| Scotland girls | John | 3 | 577th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
John: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | John | 743 | 0.060% | 118th |
| French boys | Switzerland | John | 151 | 0.035% | 172nd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | John | 33 | 0.051% | 75th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, John is most concentrated in Schwyz, where 0.10% of children were given it – 34 of them.
John: rank by region
In 2025, John was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | John | 498 | 11 |
In 2024, John was given 2 times or more in 2 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubelskie | John | 152 | 2 |
| Pomorskie | John | 227 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, John appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (251st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
John by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 183 | 89th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
John among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | John | 9,038 | 19,128 |
| Finland boys | John | 2,062 | 4,004 |
| the Netherlands girls | John | — | 191 |
| Finland girls | John | — | 5 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where John lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,874 men called John were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alicante/Alacant | John | 463 | 0.460 | 223 |
| Almería | John | 142 | 0.361 | 298 |
| Málaga | John | 307 | 0.351 | 233 |
| Palmas, Las | John | 124 | 0.213 | 459 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | John | 100 | 0.188 | 527 |
| Araba/Álava | John | 30 | 0.178 | 474 |
Listed in 42 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 10 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
John against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.