Giovani
Masculine · “God is gracious”
Giovani is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 7,616 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Giovani is the Italian John with one n instead of two — a spelling that travels easily in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking families, and one that has held a quiet, steady place in American records for decades. Behind it sits one of the oldest continuously used names in the world, carried from Hebrew into Greek, Latin, and then into nearly every language of Europe. Said aloud it has a run of open vowels and a light ending: jo-VAH-nee.
How old is the name Giovani?
Giovani first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Giovani alive today was born around 2010, making them about 15 years old. About 7,500 people named Giovani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Giovani most popular?
Giovani peaked in 2011, reaching #503 nationally. Today it ranks #1310, 807 places below that high. See the whole 2011 chart.
Giovani appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Yochanan to Giovani
The story of Giovani
The root is the Hebrew name Yochanan, which the Greek translators of the Jewish scriptures rendered as Ioannes and Latin took up as Iohannes. Because it belonged to both John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, it spread through Christian Europe faster than almost any other name, taking a different shape in each language: John in English, Jean in French, Juan in Spanish, João in Portuguese, and Giovanni in Italian. Giovani is the single-n spelling of that Italian form, widely used in Brazil and across Spanish-speaking Latin America, and it is through those communities that it reached American records — which is why it shows up most strongly in California, Texas and Florida.
Meaning
God is gracious
The name descends from Hebrew Yochanan, 'Yahweh is gracious', through the Italian Giovanni.
How the name formed
- Yochanan
- Ioannes
- Iohannes
- Giovanni
- Giovani
Related forms: Giovanni · Juan · João · John · Jean · Ivan
Pronouncing Giovani
jo-VAH-nee
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. The single n does not change how it sounds — Giovani and Giovanni are said the same way, though some Spanish-speaking families say it closer to jee-oh-VAH-nee.
Nicknames for Giovani
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 2011519 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #503reached in 2011
- Change vs 2024
- −6.3%148 in 2025, from 158
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Giovani in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Giovanni in Italian — spelling variant
- Juan in Spanish — same name
- João in Portuguese — same name
- John in English — same name
- Jean in French — same name
- Ivan in Russian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Giovanis among us
people named Giovani are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 11,541 born in 2025 was named Giovani
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Giovani
- #1310
- Giovani on the 2025 chart
- #117
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Giovani went to 148 boys in 2025, but Giovanni, Giovanny and Giovany are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 3,182, which makes it the 117th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,193 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 537 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 11,541 for Giovani itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Dimitri test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Giovani's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Dimitri climbed just as high around 1992, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Dimitri's path sketches the road Giovani is walking now.
Giovani sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Giovani is headed
Giovani should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Giovani beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Giovani in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled, plainly documented meaning — 'God is gracious' — with a line back to Hebrew that has never been broken.
- The same name exists in nearly every European language, so grandparents and cousins abroad will each have their own form of it: Juan, João, John, Jean, Ivan.
- Gio is a ready-made short form that needs no explaining, and Gianni is there for a longer nickname.
- Familiar to most American ears without being common in any one classroom.
- The double-n Giovanni is the standard Italian spelling and the better known of the two, so expect a lifetime of gentle corrections and forms coming back with an extra n.
- Pronunciation shifts a little between Italian and Spanish-influenced speakers — jo-VAH-nee versus jee-oh-VAH-nee. Both are correct for this spelling; it helps to decide early which one your family uses.
- Most people carrying it in the US are still young, so it reads as a name of recent generations rather than an inherited one — though the name behind it is about as old as names get.
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What they receive
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Giovani
Masculine · #1310 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Giovanis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,500 people named Giovani are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Giovani?
- Giovani is one of 4 recorded spellings. Giovanni is the more common one — 2,939 births in 2025 against 148 for Giovani.
- How popular is the name Giovani in 2025?
- Giovani ranks #1310 among US boy names in 2025, with 148 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Giovani?
- About 1 in every 11,541 US boys born in 2025 was named Giovani — 148 in all.
- Will my child share the name Giovani with classmates?
- Giovani will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Giovani
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rustyn#1310 · Coleman#1310 · Renzo#1310 · Cian#1310 · Nova#1305 · Jael#1315 · Nikko#1315 · Haiden#1305
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Giovani? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Giovani and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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