Joshua
Masculine · “the Lord is salvation”
Joshua is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 1,248,929 boys against 4,953 girls since 1880. See Joshua as a girl 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 was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Joshua alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 1,195,000 people named Joshua are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Joshua most popular?
Joshua peaked in 2002, reaching #3 nationally. Today it ranks #66, 63 places below that high. See the whole 2002 chart.
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.
Cultural footprint
Joshua Bassett (b. 2000) — High School Musical: The Musical star
Joshua Jackson (b. 1978) — Dawson's Creek's Pacey
Joshua Reynolds (b. 1723) — 18th-century England's master portrait painter
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 198944,100 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3reached in 2002
- Change vs 2022
- −8.2%4,773 in 2025, from 5,197
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida. International figures from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Statistics Canada. Sources
Joshuas among us
people named Joshua are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 358 born in 2025 was named Joshua
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Christopher test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Joshua's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Christopher climbed just as high around 1972, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Christopher's path sketches the road Joshua is walking now.
Joshua has held the top-100 across 6 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Joshua is headed
Joshua should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Joshua beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Joshua in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
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.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Joshua
Masculine · #66 in the U.S.
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 1,195,000 people named Joshua are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Joshua in 2025?
- Joshua ranks #66 among US boy names in 2025, with 4,773 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Joshua?
- About 1 in every 358 US boys born in 2025 was named Joshua — 4,773 in all.
- Will my child share the name Joshua with classmates?
- Joshua will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Joshua
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Angel#67 · Nolan#65 · Brooks#64 · Christopher#68 · Lincoln#69 · Nathan#63 · Aiden#62 · Jayden#70
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Joshua? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Joshua and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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