Joa
Joa is given to both girls and boys: 5 girls and 9 boys were given it in 2025 (#15,960 among girls’ names and #8,552 among boys’, #13,165 among all names counting both); 114 Americans have been recorded with it since 1953 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Joa by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Joa?
#8,552 among boys’ names, 2025
Joa entered the boys’ rankings after 2015 and stood at #8,552 in 2025.
32 babies in 2024, the peak
Joa peaked in 2024, when 32 babies were given it (25 boys, #4,254 among boys’ names). The 14 births of 2025 (girls and boys) are 44% of that peak.
Births by sex.
| Year | Girls | Girls’ rank | Boys | Boys’ rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 5 | #15,960 | 9 | #8,552 |
| 2024 | 7 | #12,734 | 25 | #4,254 |
| 2023 | 5 | #16,253 | 6 | #11,472 |
| 2022 | under 5 | 6 | #11,516 | |
| 2021 | 6 | #14,262 | under 5 | |
| 2020 | under 5 | 6 | #11,241 | |
| 2016 | under 5 | 5 | #13,139 | |
| 2013 | under 5 | 5 | #13,018 | |
| 1974 | 5 | #9,313 | under 5 | |
| 1958 | 8 | #4,679 | under 5 |
Every recorded year (12)
| Year | Girls | Girls’ rank | Boys | Boys’ rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1956 | 6 | #5,574 | under 5 | |
| 1953 | 10 | #3,823 | under 5 |
Ranks: girls’ names and boys’ names ranked separately in each year’s SSA file; “under 5” is a year SSA did not list the name for that sex.
Is Joa a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 114 Americans recorded as Joa, 46% are girls and 54% boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Joa: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Joa, and how old are they?
An estimated 108 Americans named Joa and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (95% of everyone recorded); the median is 3 years old and half are between 2 and 13. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 413 people named Joa (286 women and girls, 127 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 36 born in the U.S. The Census count is 11.5 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Joa rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 530,640 babies since 1880, Joa is the seventh most given (<1% of them). In 2025 it was given to 14 of their 887 babies (1.6%), the fifth most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Joa
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Joa and names like it
- Compare Joa and JoeBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sJoa peaked in 2024.
- The top names of 2024The year the most babies were named Joa.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Joa alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with JMost given first.