Janis
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the first name Janis, Latvian form of John
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʒaɲɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Janis is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Greece it is the most common given name.
- LVLatvia1 in 43(measured from records)
- GRGreece1 in 33as Ιωάννης
- CYCyprus1 in 94as Ιωαννης
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Janis itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #265 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 580 (measured from records)
- 1 in 43 (inferred from the name graph)
3,125,123 named John, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Latvia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Janice in US United States, GB United Kingdom, PH Philippines, Ioannis in SE Sweden, CY Cyprus, John in GR Greece and Giannis in BR Brazil.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the first name Janis, Latvian form of John. aSHmSiaA Janis from the Champagne region of France is documented in 1704 in Trois Rivieres, Quebec, with the secondary surname Sicard.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Janis counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #124 | 3,125,123as John | 1 in 106 | 3.1M | Janice | 580 |
| GR Greece | #1 | 320,751as Ιωάννης | 1 in 33 | 650K | John | 246 |
| BR Brazil | — | 171,850as Jean | 1 in 1.2K | 172K | Giannis | 12 |
| PH Philippines | #148 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 825 | — | Janice | 160 |
| GB United Kingdom | #139 | ≈85,000 est. | ≈1 in 773 | 26 | Janice | 262 |
| SE Sweden | — | 69,521as John | 1 in 147 | 70K | Ioannis | 49 |
| LV Latvia | #1 | 43,623 | 1 in 43 | 44K | Jānis | 63 |
| CY Cyprus | #16 | 13,458as Ιωαννης | 1 in 94 | 13K | Ioannis | 97 |
3,125,123 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling john. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; ELSTAT — population given names; According to a survey conducted by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), the most popular male and female names i; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register); CYSTAT — Name frequency (2011 Population Census). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Janis is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Variant spelling of Janice, made popular in the 1960s and 70s by the American rock singer Janis Joplin (1943-70).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, perhaps a variant spelling of Janice.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
English: variant spelling of JANICE , made popular in the 1960s and 1970s by the American rock singer Janis Joplin (1943–70).
as a word
In Latvian, Vīrieša vārds
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Jānis Čaksteb. 1859LV1st president of Latvia (1859-1927)
- Jānis Lūsisb. 1939LVLatvian javelin thrower (1939-2020)
- Janis Joplinb. 1943USAmerican singer (1943–1970)
- Yannis Smaragdisb. 1946GRnot in their usual nameGreek film director
- Janis Ianb. 1951USAmerican singer-songwriter
- Yannis Sfairopoulosb. 1967GRnot in their usual nameGreek professional basketball coach
- Ioannis Okkasb. 1977CYnot in their usual nameCypriot footballer
- Ioannis Amanatidisb. 1981GRnot in their usual nameGreek executive, coach and retired association football player
- Giannis Maniatisb. 1986GRnot in their usual nameGreek footballer
- Jānis Timmab. 1992LVLatvian basketball player (1992–2024)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 96 sources across 46 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 38K | #1,078 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 992 | #9,269 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 986 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 683 | #8,371 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 537 | #2,627 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 449 | #1,078 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 303 | #8,371 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 288 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2010 | 54 | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 18 | — |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup) | — | 17 | #2,864 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 10 | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Janis come from?
- from the first name Janis, Latvian form of John. aSHmSiaA Janis from the Champagne region of France is documented in 1704 in Trois Rivieres, Quebec, with the secondary surname Sicard. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- Is Janis a male or female name?
- Janis is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Janis?
- In the etymology graph, Jean, Janet and Joan are forms of the same name in other languages; Janna is a recorded short or pet form; it is recorded as a short form of Jane and Jayne.
- In which country does Janis have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.1 million people named John, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Janis most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Janis is densest in Latvia — about 1 in 43 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Janis?
- In Latvia, the national register counted 43,623 people named Janis, about 1 in 43 residents.
- How common is Janis compared with other names?
- In the United States, Janis is the 124th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Janis?
- A machine transcription gives /dʒaɲɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Janis mean?
- Recorded meaning: from the first name Janis, Latvian form of John.
What do you want to know about Janis?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/janisThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Janis” — the 124th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.