Johannes

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in German: used as a Hebrew equivalent of Hannibal; from Hebrew Yôḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious'

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Johannes is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common given name.

rarermore common
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 202(inferred from the name graph)
  • SESweden1 in 311
  • ATAustria≈1 in 356

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

South Africa (inferred from the name graph)

≈280,000 people, est.

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
315 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 43 (inferred from the name graph)

Finland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

JohannesLatin(measured from records)
โยฮันเนสThai(measured from records)
ΓιοχανεςGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

used as a Hebrew equivalent of Hannibal; from Hebrew Yôḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.

How Johannes is read(measured from records)

Johannes is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • German50%

    used as a Hebrew equivalent of Hannibal; from Hebrew Yôḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    from Hebrew Yôḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious'; source of many stock names

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    from Hebrew yōḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    from the personal name Johannes (see John).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • English20%

    A former Portuguese gold coin.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Dutch9.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Johannes in Dutch.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Johannes 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.

Where Johannes is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZA South Africa#2≈280,000 est.≈1 in 202—Johannes107
DE Germany#64≈200,000 est.≈1 in 401—Johannes315
FI Finland#795130,3031 in 43264KJohannes52
SE Sweden#37732,7791 in 31133KJohannes104
AT Austria#37≈25,000 est.≈1 in 35617KJohannes184

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: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Johannes is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Finnish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, Sweden, South Africa, Estonia

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Jóhannes, Jöhánnës

  • Danish given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, United States

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Jóhannes

  • French given name6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, South Africa, Belgium, Netherlands

    Also written Johannès, Johannés, Jôhannes, Jóhannes

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Jóhannes, Johannès

  • Indonesian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, South Africa, United States, Philippines

    Also written 'Johannes, Jóhannes

  • Polish given name21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Czechia

    Languages: Polish, Croatian, Czech

    Also written Johanes, Йоханес, Иоханес, Jóhannes, Јоханес

92 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Johannes is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Latin, from Hebrew Yôḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

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)

500100015002000Johannes Scotus Erigena, b. 800Jan Hus, b. 1369Johannes Vermeer, b. 1632Johannes Diderik van der Waals, b. 1837Johannes Jensen, b. 1873Erwin Rommel, b. 1891Johannes Rau, b. 1931Johan Cruyff, b. 1947Johan Neeskens, b. 1951Ruud van Nistelrooy, b. 1976
  • Johannes Scotus Erigenab. 800IEIrish Catholic philosopher and theologian (c. 800 – c. 877)
  • Jan Husb. 1369CZnot in their usual nameCzech theologian, philosopher and preacher (1369-1415)
  • Johannes Vermeerb. 1632NLDutch painter (1632–1675)
  • Johannes Diderik van der Waalsb. 1837NLDutch physicist (1837–1923)
  • Johannes Jensenb. 1873DKDanish author (1873-1950)
  • Erwin Rommelb. 1891DEnot in their usual nameGerman field marshal (1891-1944)
  • Johannes Raub. 1931DEGerman politician (SPD), 8th president of Germany from 1999 until 2004 (1931–2006)
  • Johan Cruyffb. 1947NLnot in their usual nameDutch footballer and manager (1947–2016)
  • Johan Neeskensb. 1951NLnot in their usual nameDutch football manager and player (1951–2024)
  • Ruud van Nistelrooyb. 1976NLnot in their usual nameDutch association football player and coach

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 100 sources across 48 countries.

Official registers attesting Johannes
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—264K#2
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—130K—
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—33K#129
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024)202417K#31
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)202010K—
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — Vornamen der Geborenen (1984–present)2024252#31
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—83#3,351
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—51—

Reference works 7

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

What does the name Johannes mean, and where does it come from?
used as a Hebrew equivalent of Hannibal; from Hebrew Yôḥānān 'Yahweh is gracious' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
In which country does Johannes have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 280 thousand people named Johannes in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled johannes.
Where is Johannes most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Johannes is densest in Finland — about 1 in 43 people — even though South Africa holds more of our records for it.
Is Johannes a male or female name?
Johannes 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 Johannes?
In the etymology graph, John, Juan and Ivan are forms of the same name in other languages; Hans, Hanne and Hannes are recorded short or pet forms.
How common is the name Johannes?
In Finland, the national register counted 130,303 people named Johannes, about 1 in 43 residents.
How common is Johannes compared with other names?
In South Africa, Johannes is the 2nd most common given name of 189,620 given names recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/johannes

The 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, “Johannes” — the 2nd most common given name in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Johannes parses inside a full name →