Jovana
Feminine · “God is gracious”
Serbian families do not celebrate name days individually. They keep a slava — one saint's feast for the whole household, inherited from father to child, kept in the same family for centuries. The most widely kept slava in Serbia is Saint John's, and that is why Jovan and Jovana are everywhere there.
How old is the name Jovana?
Jovana first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Jovana alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 2,000 people named Jovana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jovana most popular?
Jovana peaked in 2001, reaching #1132 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,785 places below that high. See the whole 2001 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yochanan to Jovana
The story of Jovana
The slava is unusual: most of Christian Europe attaches a saint to the individual, and Serbia attaches one to the family line, with a candle, a particular cake and an open house on the same date every year regardless of who has been born. Jovanjdan, the feast of Saint John, falls in late January and is kept by more Serbian families than any other, which puts the name in front of every generation of children as a matter of course rather than of fashion. The name reached American records with families from Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, and separately in Spanish-speaking families as a form of Giovanna, so a Jovana in the United States may be either.
Meaning
God is gracious
Jovana is the Serbian feminine of Jovan, which is John, from Hebrew Yochanan. The South Slavs took the name from Greek Ioannes, which is why it begins with Jo- rather than with the I- of Ivan or the Ja- of Czech Jan. All three are the same name arriving by different roads.
How the name formed
- Yochanan
- Ioannes
- Jovan
- Jovana
Related forms: Jovana · Jovana · Giovanna · Ivanna
Pronouncing Jovana
YO-vah-nah
Three syllables, stress on the first, with a y sound at the front in Serbian — the j is a y in every Slavic language that uses the Latin alphabet. In Spanish-speaking families it is ho-VAH-nah, and in English JO-vah-nah. All three are in real American use.
Nicknames for Jovana
Moderate
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
- 1975
- Most girls named
- 2001185 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1132reached in 2001
- Change vs 2024
- −57.9%8 in 2025, from 19
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.
Jovana in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jovana in Serbian — same name
- Jovana in Macedonian — same name
- Giovanna in Italian — same name
- Ivanna in Russian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Jovanas among us
people named Jovana are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Jovana
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jovana
- #10917
- Jovana on the 2025 chart
- #931
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jovana went to 8 girls in 2025, but Jovanna is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 29, which makes it the 931st most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,986 places above the chart.
- Jovanna21
- Jovana8
About 1 girl in 55,423 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Jovana 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 Peri test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jovana's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Peri climbed just as high around 1960, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Peri's path sketches the road Jovana is walking now.
Jovana 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
Jovana beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jovana in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning shared with the largest name family in Europe.
- Three open syllables and no consonant cluster anywhere.
- It is a full, ordinary name in Serbian rather than a coinage.
- The j is said three ways depending on the reader's first language, and none is a mistake.
- Giovanna, Yovana and Jovanna are all in use and all close.
- Outside Slavic and Spanish-speaking communities the name will need explaining more often than most.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Jovana
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jovanas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,000 people named Jovana are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jovana?
- Jovana is one of 2 recorded spellings. Jovanna is the more common one — 21 births in 2025 against 8 for Jovana.
- How popular is the name Jovana in 2025?
- Jovana ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jovana?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Jovana — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jovana with classmates?
- Jovana will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jovana
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jovana? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jovana and another name?
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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