Joshua
Feminine · “the Lord is salvation”
Joshua is given to boys far more often — 1,248,929 boys against 4,953 girls since 1880. See Joshua as a boy name
Joshua and Jesus are the same name. Yehoshua is the Hebrew; Greek rendered it Iesous; Latin took that as Iesus and English as Jesus, while the Hebrew form came into English separately and directly as Joshua. Two of the most-used names in the Western world, and they are one word arriving by two roads.
How old is the name Joshua?
Joshua first appears in US birth records in 1968 — 57 years ago. The typical Joshua alive today was born around 1986, making them about 39 years old. About 4,800 people named Joshua are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Joshua most popular?
Joshua peaked in 1986, reaching #616 nationally. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hoshea to Joshua
The story of Joshua
The man in the book of Joshua is Moses' successor, and the text records a detail that is easy to skim past: he was called Hoshea, and Moses renamed him Yehoshua, adding the divine element. Renaming at a turning point is a pattern in those books — Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel — and this is one of them. The name came into English use with the Reformation, when families began taking names directly from the Hebrew scriptures, and it went to America with the Puritans and stayed.
Meaning
the Lord is salvation
Yehoshua joins a short form of the divine name with a root about saving or delivering: the Lord saves, or the Lord is salvation. The shortened Hebrew form is Yeshua, which is what Greek transliterated as Iesous. The derivation is not disputed anywhere, and it is the reason the Gospel of Matthew explains the name — the text expects readers to hear the meaning in it.
How the name formed
- Hoshea
- Yehoshua
- Iesous
- Joshua
Related forms: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ · Josué · Giosuè · Yusha · Iisus Navin
Pronouncing Joshua
JOSH-oo-uh
JOSH-oo-uh, three syllables, stress at the front. Hebrew puts the weight at the end and sounds every syllable, yeh-ho-SHOO-ah. The English name has lost a syllable and moved the stress, which is ordinary for a name this old in this language.
Nicknames for Joshua
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1968
- Most girls named
- 1986307 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #616reached in 1986
- Change vs 2023
- +33.3%8 in 2024, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Joshua in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- יְהוֹשֻׁעַ in Hebrew — transliteration
- Josué in Spanish — same name
- Giosuè in Italian — same name
- Yusha in Arabic — same name
- Iisus Navin in Russian — same name
Joshuas among us
people named Joshua are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Joshua sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is one of the clearest and most consequential in the whole Hebrew name stock.
- Josh is a complete working short form that needs no explanation anywhere.
- It is the same name as Jesus, which is a genuinely remarkable thing to be able to say and very few people know.
- It has been in continuous English use since the Reformation without belonging to one period.
- A very great many people carry it, so a Joshua will rarely be the only one in a room of a certain age.
- It is closely tied to one recent American generation and dates a person fairly precisely.
- Josh arrives immediately and the full name is rarely used, which matters to families who chose it for the full name.
- This spelling is recorded for girls too, though so rarely that a girl named Joshua will be read as a boy on every form.
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What they receive
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Joshua
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Joshuas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,800 people named Joshua are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Joshua in 2025?
- Joshua is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Joshua with classmates?
- Joshua will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
Jennifer#586 · Jessica#665 · Janet#2778 · Julie#872 · Joyce#1071 · Joan#1085 · Julia#131 · Jean#2117
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Joshua? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Joshua and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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