John — #21 US boys' name

What the Data Says About John

The Social Security Administration has registered 5,174,470 babies named John between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, John currently holds the #21 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1947, when 88,321 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that John performed strongest in the 1950s, accumulating 797,917 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, John shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 498,719 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Pennsylvania and California. In total, SSA state-level files list John in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for John in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 5,174,470 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.