I’m asking because there was a time when in the English-speaking world, “John” was the most common boy’s name. That would be why various expressions use the term “Jack” (nickname for John) to refer to a typical man or a male (e.g. jackass - a male donkey; every man Jack - every normal man; Jackie Tar - a song about an archetypal young British sailor). Yet at some point not that long ago, this centuries-old practice was broken. The name seemed to have last been a popular baby name in the 50s or 60s. One of my best friends is called John and he was given that name in the USA in 1964 (and interestingly, there are / were some people close to him with whom he used “Kenny” - his middle name is Kenneth - instead). But believe it or not, going to school in the 1980s and 1990s in Canada, I think in my entire school career, I only had two schoolmates that I remember who were called John.
Is there any indication of what could have caused people to almost suddenly abandon a name that was once ubiquitous? Could it have had anything to do with the slang use of “John” as a term for a toilet, or for the patron of a prostitute, in the same way as the association of “Dick” with a penis has sort of ruined the name Richard? Or was it simply that the name was so ubiquitous that it became a stereotype, causing people to abandon it (as for example one might not want “Here Comes the Bride” or Mendelssohn’s Wedding March played at their wedding so as not to seem staid and unoriginal)?
Before someone mentions it, I will point out that I am aware that there are lots of younger people bearing etymological cognates of “John” as their name (Sean - Irish Gaelic, Ian - Scottish Gaelic, Evan - Welsh). Or that the name’s cognates are still common in other countries (for example, the Czech version, “Jan”, continues to be popular; typically, a Jan will be referred to by people around them by the nickname “Honza”). I’m asking strictly about the basic English form “John”.
I’m going to dispute the premise. If I’m interpreting this info from the SSA correctly, “John” was the 27th most popular male baby name in 2021, down from its peak of 14th in 2001.
I know plenty of Johns, and my neighbor’s son is named John. According to Mr. Google, John is ranked #27 on the list of most popular boy’s names. John has fallen a bit over the years (prior to 1924 it was #1) but it is still a very popular name.
A friend of mine named her almost 3-year-old John and her 10-month-old Margaret. Both choices feel old fashioned, but the girl’s name much more so than the boy’s.
It might be due to the name being perceived as “too common” in your social group so parents opt for a different name (names do go in and out of fashion).
Names go in and out of style. My first name and one of my sister’s were the most popular names the years we were born. My other sister’s name was in the top 5 (my parents were not too imaginative ). Now none of those names probably crack the top 20.
The name ‘Hazel’ used to only belong to 75 year old women, it was so out of fashion. Then it became trendy again for awhile, in the early 2000s, I think.
Yes, but going from #1 to #27 is pretty precipitous. The percentage of baby boys being named John has dropped from 5% to under 0.5% in three generations.
In my own family (over 25 boys in my daughter’s generation of second cousins) there are zero Johns, first or middle names. In my generation born in the 1960s there are several middle names John but no first names. Both of my grandfathers were named John (born in late 19th century).
Yes. There were lots of Johns when I was growing up, so I’ve known many Johns and that’s often their sentiment. There were a lot of Davids too and sometimes they felt the same way about their name. When you’re in a class with 25 kids and three or four are named John or David. it makes you feel ordinary.
John has strong biblical ties and, when people were far more religious than they are now, they favored biblically based names far more than they do now.
The country has gotten much more diverse since the 1920s. Different cultures had a different pool of names so it’s unlikely any one name will dominate like it did in the past.
I wonder how much of it is due to ethnic names being more popular - I know loads of "John"s who are actually “Giovanni” and probably even more "John"s who would have been “Giovanni” if it hadn’t been that someone didn’t want to use a foreign name.
Funny, growing up, I can remember only one person I knew that was named John. Right now at 71, I can’t think of one person I know that is named John.
Back in my youth, if you were named John you ran the risk of being called Johnny. This is probably why we knew a lot of people who went only by their initials.
When I was younger I once worked construction for J.R. Randall. His brothers were J.N. Randall and J.T. Randall. Did the J stand for John? We never knew or cared, just get us our checks on time.
This list from the Social Security Administration gives the top 10 given names for babies born in the U.S. in the 1960s. John was #3; my own name of Michael was #1 – through my school years, I always had several other classmates with my name, and fully 10% of my graduating class in high school were Michaels. The top 10 boy names:
Seven of the top 10 names from the 1960s are no longer in the top 10. Sure, there are not many kids named John now (now at #26), but you can say the same thing about Thomas (now down to #50), Robert (now down to #64), or Mark (#190).
tl;dr: Yes, it’s happened, but it’s not particularly unique to the name “John.”
That might have played a role with Richard, though the phenomenon I witnessed personally is that younger Richards stopped using “Dick” as their preferred surname, probably sometime in the 1960s or 1970s. My father is a Richard (born in 1933), and he has always gone by “Dick,” which was not at all uncommon for men then (see Dick Nixon, Dick Cavett, Dick Martin, etc.). My cousin, born the same year as me, is also a Richard, and he has always gone by Rich; while there are fewer Richards now (just as with many other given names common from decades ago; it’s at #146 in the SSA list for the 2010s), most of them are likely going by “Rich,” “Richie,” or “Rick” as their nicknames.
Not as common as before as people gravitate to the what is trendy at the time, like Noah or Liam or whatever. The old fashioned names like John and Mary are still being used but they’ll never have the prevalence they once did since there are so many different names than there used to be. But you ask any streetwalker and she’ll tell you there are always plenty of Johns.
…I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude.
). Now none of those names probably crack the top 20.