Men named John hold more CEO titles than all women combined, report shows

John is the second-most popular man’s name in the United States, with more than 5.2 million people with that name, according to Parenting.com.

And in the corporate world, John is a pretty popular name, too, with with more men named John holding a CEO titles than women — of any name — in the United States.

According to a recent report by The New York Times, more leadership roles at S&P 1500 are filled by men named John than all women, with a ratio of roughly four male CEOs named John to every woman as a chief executive.

John isn’t the only name to outnumber all women — David’s up there too, with roughly 4.5 percent of men named David making up the total S&P 1500 CEO population. John holds the highest share at 5.3 percent.

The New York Times attributes the study, dubbed the ‘Glass Ceiling Index,’ to a recent Ernst & Young report examining the prevalence of women in upper management workforce positions. The report shows that only 16 percent of board seats at S&P 1500 firms are held by women — up only 5 percentage points in the last decade.

Other surprising numbers from the NYT report: For every woman holding a corporate director position, there are 1.03 men named John, James, Robert or William and 2.17 men of the same name to every woman among Senate Republicans.

In the NYT article published on March 2, Justin Wolfers viewed the study as an indicator of the “glass ceiling” that exists for women in the upper echelons of corporate America.

“Even as this ratio falls short of the score among chief executives, it remains astonishingly high. It also understates the impermeability of the glass ceiling,” Wolfers wrote. “After all, most companies understand that an all-male board looks bad, and so most of them appoint at least one woman, although only a minority bother to appoint more than one.”

The ratio of men named John, James, Robert or William compared to the entire U.S. women population is only 0.12.

For Wolfers, the Glass Ceiling Index “does point to an important truth — that in many important decision-making areas of American life, women remain vastly outnumbered.”