The number and the growth characteristics of scholarly journals have been matters of some debate for a considerable time. Many assumptions about the future of the scholarly communication system have been predicated on very high estimates of the number of journal titles and their seemingly inexorable growth. This article argues in favour of a novel approach to estimating journal numbers and provides results that are consistent with other lines of enquiry. An analysis of the results also allows a model of journal growth to be developed that matches other statistical observations.