Why is "John" the most popular male name in the Western World?

[syncrolecyne]

I do realise John the Baptist was quite important, and there were other famous "Johns" in the Bible starting with the Apostle John. So even at the time of Christ it seemed rather popular in the Jewish world. Why has it continued to be the most common traditional male name in practivally every Western or Christian nation? Why not Joseph (which also has two prominent Biblical namesakes), Jacob/James, Paul, David, Matthew, Mark, Luke, ...or a non-Biblical name?

I mean in the case of the Islamic world it is very clear why Muhammad/Mohamed/Mehmet is the most common name. The popularity of John/Jean/Juan/Johannes/Ivan is less clear to me.

[Evil Captor]

Well, there's the people who use the Biblical name in hopes the kid will get to heaven even if they whack a few people, etc., there are the people who like the name in and of itself, but mostly there's all the ho's who name their kids after their daddy.

[Zenster]

So prostitutes don't have to remember something really difficult like, "Bartholomew."

[BellaVoce]

Why not?

[Exapno Mapcase]

The Biblical explanation is probably the best one, because of the near universal impact of the Bible on western countries. Note that John is also the most popular name for Popes.

Books on names and naming I've read say that in Britain and in countries affected by the British Empire, thereby including the U.S., King John had a huge influence. The number of Johns in the record books jumps at that time, and the name was frequently given to children by fathers named John perpetuating it.

[JohnT]

Because. :D

[astorian]

Originally posted by Exapno Mapcase
The Biblical explanation is probably the best one, because of the near universal impact of the Bible on western countries. Note that John is also the most popular name for Popes.

Books on names and naming I've read say that in Britain and in countries affected by the British Empire, thereby including the U.S., King John had a huge influence. The number of Johns in the record books jumps at that time, and the name was frequently given to children by fathers named John perpetuating it.

King John's "influence" was generally perceived as negative. So negative, in fact, that ever since his death, no one in the British royal family has named a son John.

[aahala]

In the 1990 US census, James was more popular than John.

http://landview.census.gov/genealogy/names/

[Askia]

"John" wins almost 2 to 1 in a Googlefight! (http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=John&q2=James&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us)

[wolf_meister]

aahala is correct. James is a more popular name then John.

[wolf_meister]

oops - that posting should read "THAN John". Please pardon that grammatical error.

[KGS]

Ever think about how many toilets there are in the world? Well, there you go. :)

[Johanna]

I always thought it's because there are two big saints in the New Testament named John. That automatically doubles the use of the name.

There are two Jameses too, but St. James the Less is very obscure and I doubt anyone has him in mind when naming.

[RickJay]

I think an easy answer to the OP is that it's based on a wrong premise. John has clearly lost its #1 place. At least in the U.S. and Canada, the most popular male name, for many years now, is Jacob; prior to that Michael had a string of years in the #1 spot.

"John" hasn't cracked the top ten in a decade.

[everton]

That would be fair comment if "the U.S and Canada" was the same as "the Western World" as mentioned in the OP. But it isn't.

[bordelond]

Originally posted by RickJay
I think an easy answer to the OP is that it's based on a wrong premise. John has clearly lost its #1 place. At least in the U.S. and Canada, the most popular male name, for many years now, is Jacob; prior to that Michael had a string of years in the #1 spot.

"John" hasn't cracked the top ten in a decade.

You're thinking of the naming of male babies in the U.S.

But how popular is John among males of all ages in the U.S.? Others are saying it is #2 behind "James".

[everton]

Far be it from me to explain what the OP wanted to know, but he was very specific about including the variants John, Jean, Juan, Johannes and Ivan. In fact those only scratched the surface. Others include Sean, Ian, Iain, Owen, Ewan, Eoin, Jan, Johan, Yvon, Gianni, Joan, Ion, Hans, Hannes and many more.

That led me to conclude that he was asking about the widespread nature of the name traditionally, not its popularity in the USA over the last decade or so.

I’m afraid I can’t answer the question though.

[Johanna]

Besides, even if the current naming trend has dethroned John from its long-running top spot, I bet most of the population is still over 10 years old. There are still a lot of 20-year-old fogeys and 30-year-old geezers remaining alive from those long-ago days of old.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Originally posted by astorian
King John's "influence" was generally perceived as negative. So negative, in fact, that ever since his death, no one in the British royal family has named a son John.

Yes, I'm aware of this. John was hated even in his lifetime. However, it seems to be historically true that John becomes important in England about then. I'll have to try to finding the book for an explanation.

[syncrolecyne]

For all I know "Tyler" or "Shawn" (actually a corrupted version of the Irish name for John) are currently more popular than plain "John" in the United States, but I am thinking in more broad terms....across the last millenium. And we still have John Doe, John Q. Public, John Bull, Johnny Sixpack, and John Smithee.

Kings may be the exception; has France ever had a Roi Jean? Or Germany a Kaiser Johannes? Spain now has a Juan Carlos, but never plain Juan....maybe that name just isn't as "kingly" as Charles, Henry, or Louis.

[everton]

Originally posted by syncrolecyne
Kings may be the exception; has France ever had a Roi Jean? Or Germany a Kaiser Johannes? Spain now has a Juan Carlos, but never plain Juan....maybe that name just isn't as "kingly" as Charles, Henry, or Louis.
FWIW, France – two Jeans (one in 1316 and another between 1350-1364)
Germany – no kings or emperors named anything like John (none of the Holy Roman Emperors either)
Spain – four King Juans, two of Castille and two of Aragon (in addition to the present Juan Carlos)

John de Baliol was also King of Scotland (1249-1315).

[everton]

In addition, there have been six kings of Portugal called João, a Grand Duke of Jean Luxembourg, two kings of Sweden called Johan (plus one more called Hans and a Karl Johan), a king Hans of Denmark, two king Johns of Poland, five king Istvans of Hungary, five tsar Ivans of Russia...

[Chronos]

Isn't this just a selection effect? I mean, something's got to be most popular. If it happened to be Bartholemew, then the OP would be asking "Why Bart?". It's like rolling a die and then asking why four came up. If the question is just why there's such a popular name at all, there's a negative feedback. Once a name gets just a little bit more popular, by random chance, there are that many more people named that. And then, that means that more kids get named after the first generation. Then, those kids grow up, and get people named after them, too, and so on.

[Mister Rik]

I always thought it had something to do with the Catholic Church. Being a Protestant myself, I don't know this for fact, but I was told that Catholics are supposed to name their children after saints. And with the preponderance of Pope John's, it shouldn't be surprising that Saint John would be a popular namesake.

[ruadh]

Originally posted by syncrolecyne
"Shawn" (actually a corrupted version of the Irish name for John)

And that Irish name, Seán, is as much a "corruption" as Shawn is (although to be pedantic it's actually a "corruption" of the Norman Jehan/ Jean rather than of John). Personally I think it's better not to use such loaded terms.

FWIW the older more traditional Irish name for John is Eoin.

[everton]

Yeah, Eoin was on my list earlier.

Phase42’s suggestion might be right to a degree. There’s no hard and fast rule about using saints’ names (at least not these days) but it’s certainly very common. John has also been used by more popes than any other name, for whatever reason, and although some other papal names are a bit, well, peculiar, John isn’t much of a burden to give a child. I have a cousin who was named after Pope John XXIII.

That doesn’t explain the prevalence of John in non-Catholic societies, but saints’ names have been popular throughout Europe as have family names everywhere.

[Johanna]

István is Hungarian for Stephen.

The Hungarian form of John is János.

[moriah]

1. I'd like to know the source of 'John' being the most populous name in the Western World.

2. John, being from the bible, is also a Hebrew, and thus, a non-Western name (if you consider near-East being non-Western). So this would increase its popularity world wide.

3. As mentioned, don't confuse the most popular baby name given in a particular year for being most popular over all.

4. I can't find a cite right now, but I believe 'Michael' is the most popular male name in the U.S. right now, over all. And if you go into the Western World, it's popular in most Western countries (Micheal, G.; Michele, Fr.; Miguel, Sp., etc...).

5. Biblical names are the most popular names in Western culture, because of the considerable influence of the Bible. Biblical names that are most popular tend to come from the most popular characters (etc., Mary, Peter), the shortest names (John v. Jehosaphat), and names from both Testaments (e.g., Joseph or Michael).

Peace,

moriah <---- a biblical name!

[Ranchoth]

What I want to know is; what kind of jerk names their kid "John" if their last name is Smith?