Jovanni
Masculine · “God is gracious”
Jovanni is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 6,835 boys against 192 girls since 1880.
Jovanni is the Italian Giovanni written with a J — the same three-beat roll in the mouth, joh-VAH-nee, with a spelling that looks at home in English and Spanish alike. Behind it stands one of the most widely carried names on earth: John, in the form Italy has used since the Middle Ages. It arrived on American records only a few decades ago and has stayed a name a boy is likely to hold alone in his year group.
How old is the name Jovanni?
Jovanni first appears in US birth records in 1978 — 47 years ago. The typical Jovanni alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 6,700 people named Jovanni are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jovanni most popular?
Jovanni peaked in 2012, reaching #734 nationally. Today it ranks #1118, 384 places below that high. See the whole 2012 chart.
Where it comes from
From Yochanan to Jovanni
The story of Jovanni
The line begins with the Hebrew Yochanan, carried into Greek as Ioannes by the translators and writers of the early Christian texts, then into Latin as Iohannes. From Latin it split into the vernaculars of Europe: John in English, Juan in Spanish, Jean in French, Ivan among the Slavs, and Giovanni in Italian. Jovanni is a later respelling of that Italian form, swapping the silent Italian Gi- for a plain J while keeping the sound intact — the kind of adjustment names make when they cross into an English- and Spanish-speaking country. It also sits a step from Jovan, the South Slavic form of the same name, so the spelling has two true relatives rather than one.
Meaning
God is gracious
From the Hebrew name Yochanan, the source of John, Juan, Ivan and Giovanni.
How the name formed
- Yochanan
- Ioannes
- Iohannes
- Giovanni
- Jovanni
Related forms: Giovanni · Jovan · Juan · John · João · Ivan
Pronouncing Jovanni
joh-VAH-nee
Stress on the middle syllable. Some families say juh-VAH-nee. The J is the English J sound, which lands in the same place as the Italian Gi- of Giovanni.
Nicknames for Jovanni
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
- 1978
- Most boys named
- 2012316 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #734reached in 2012
- Change vs 2024
- −1.0%191 in 2025, from 193
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.
Jovanni in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Giovanni in Italian — spelling variant
- Jovan in Serbian / Macedonian — related form
- Juan in Spanish — same name
- John in English — same name
- João in Portuguese — same name
- Ivan in Russian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Jovannis among us
people named Jovanni are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 8,943 born in 2025 was named Jovanni
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jovanni
- #1118
- Jovanni on the 2025 chart
- #525
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jovanni went to 191 boys in 2025, but Jovani, Jovanny and Jovany are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 463, which makes it the 525th most-given boys’ name of the year — 593 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 3,689 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 8,943 for Jovanni 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 Andreas test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jovanni's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Andreas climbed just as high around 1966, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Andreas's path sketches the road Jovanni is walking now.
Jovanni 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 Jovanni is headed
Jovanni 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.
Jovanni beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jovanni in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Says itself: readers who have never seen the spelling still land on joh-VAH-nee.
- Belongs to the John family, one of the longest continuously used naming lines in the world.
- Has ready short forms in real use — Jovi, Gio, Jo — without needing to be invented.
- Recognizable across Italian, Spanish and English-speaking settings, where a cousin form of it already exists.
- Common enough to be familiar, uncommon enough that a boy will likely be the only one in his class.
- It will be corrected to Giovanni for life, by teachers, forms and autocorrect alike. Worth deciding now whether that is a shrug or a bother.
- The rival spellings are many — Giovanni, Giovani, Jovani, Jovanny — and all sound identical, so he will spell it out often.
- Its record in the US is short and its bearers are mostly young, so it reads as a recent spelling rather than an inherited one, even though the name behind it is ancient.
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Jovanni
Masculine · #1118 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jovannis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,700 people named Jovanni are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jovanni?
- Jovanni is the most-used spelling in US records — 191 of the 463 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Jovani, Jovanny and Jovany.
- How popular is the name Jovanni in 2025?
- Jovanni ranks #1118 among US boy names in 2025, with 191 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jovanni?
- About 1 in every 8,943 US boys born in 2025 was named Jovanni — 191 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jovanni with classmates?
- Jovanni will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jovanni
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Makoa#1118 · Seven#1118 · Rylo#1118 · Santi#1118 · Terry#1115 · Kase#1115 · Tiago#1115 · Yazan#1123
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jovanni? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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