Johnston
The boy's name Johnston has been in the national records since 1914, with 512 births to its name. In 2025 it ranked 9,714th. About 420 Johnstons are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 24.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Johnston
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 512
- Estimated living today
- 420
- Median age today
- 24
- Peak year
- 2007
- Best rank
- 4,996th
- Rank in 2025
- 9,714th
- First recorded
- 1914
How old the living Johnstons are
born that year still alive today
Of the 512 babies given the name since 1914, about 420 are alive — 81 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2001 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.
Notable Johnstons
- Johnston McCulley (1883–1958)American writer
- J. Johnston Pettigrew (1828–1863)American general
People named Johnston with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Names of 2007
The most popular boys’ names the year Johnston peaked:
Johnston elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotland boys | Johnston | 6 | 297th |
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.
Related names
Johnston 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.