Junior

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from a personal name, from Latin junior, comparative of juvenis ‘young’

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

/ʒuɲɔx/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Junior is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 3rd most common given name.

rarermore common
  • CZCzechia1 in 18as Jan(measured from records)
  • RORomania1 in 48as Ioan
  • IEIreland≈1 in 53as John

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 Junior 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)

3,125,123 named John, 2020

#6 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

9 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
731 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 18 (inferred from the name graph)

Czechia, as Jan

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ЯнCyrillic(measured from records)
יונהHebrew(measured from records)
ዮሐንስEthiopic(measured from records)
요안Hangul(measured from records)
ΙωαννGreek(measured from records)
เซบาสเตียนThai(measured from records)
ჯონიGeorgian(measured from records)
ՅանArmenian(measured from records)
JoࣩhnArabic(measured from records)

5 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled John in US United States, GB United Kingdom, PH Philippines and 2 more, Jan in CZ Czechia, Ioan in RO Romania and Ион in MD Moldova.

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 a personal name, from Latin junior, comparative of juvenis ‘young’.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Junior 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 Junior is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#33,125,123as John1 in 1063.1MJohn731
NG Nigeria#11≈1,200,000 est.≈1 in 177—John190
GB United Kingdom#1≈1,100,000 est.≈1 in 591.1KJohn496
PH Philippines#3≈750,000 est.≈1 in 145listedJohn261
CZ Czechia#1587,876as Jan1 in 18588KJan233
RO Romania#151447,697as Ioan1 in 48448KIoan96
MD Moldova#332100,110as Ion1 in 34100KИон50
IE Ireland#1≈98,000 est.≈1 in 53—John245

3,125,123 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); MVČR — living population register 2017; DEPABD — name-day population snapshot; e-services.md — living population register. 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)

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

  • Spanish surname30 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, Mexico, Colombia

    Also written Júnior, Jünïör, Juñior, J'Unior, Jünïor

  • French surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Cameroon, Belgium

    Also written Júnior, Jùnior, Jünior, Junïor, Jüñïör

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Juníor, Júnior, Jùnior

  • Indonesian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Malaysia, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Júnior, Junior'

  • Hungarian surname13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Hungary, United Kingdom, Sweden

    Languages: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Júnior, Jüniòr, Jűňîőř, Jünïor, Jüňíór

  • Danish surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Sweden, Norway

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish

    Also written Júnior, Jüňïőř, Júníór

84 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)

Junior 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.

  • In some cases this may be a translation of for example German Jung(er).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, Low in rank; having a subordinate role, job, or situation.

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

  • In Dutch, junior (younger or lower-ranked person, for example in job titles)

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

  • In Indonesian, junior (having a subordinate role, job, or situation)

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

  • In Polish, junior (youngest member of the family by age)

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

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)

1940196019802000Paul T. Costa, Jr., b. 1942E. J. Junior, b. 1959Caio Júnior, b. 1965Harding Junior, b. 1981Simão Mate Junior, b. 1988Lago Junior, b. 1990Silvio José Cardoso Reis Junior, b. 1990Pascal Junior, b. 1992Leovigildo Júnior Reis Rodrigues, b. 1995

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)

FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 110 sources across 64 countries.

Official registers attesting Junior
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020203.1K#9,871
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102.1K#14,038
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002K#13,931

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 Junior mean, and where does it come from?
from a personal name, from Latin junior, comparative of juvenis ‘young’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
How do you pronounce Junior?
A machine transcription gives /ʒuɲɔx/ (IPA) for Portuguese.
In which country does Junior 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 Junior most common?
No national register we hold counts the spelling Junior itself. The densest figure for its family of spellings is Czechia's: the national register counts about 1 in 18 people named Jan.
How common is the name Junior?
In the United States, the national register counted 3,125,123 people named John in 2020, about 1 in 106 residents.
How common is Junior compared with other names?
In the United States, Junior is the 3rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Junior?

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

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, “Junior” — the 3rd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Junior parses inside a full name →