Josiephine
Feminine · “he will add”
Josiephine writes the nickname into the name. Josephine has always produced Josie, and this spelling puts the i where the short form would need it — a small piece of helpfulness that the standard version leaves to be worked out, and one that a good many nineteenth-century American families evidently thought worth doing.
How old is the name Josiephine?
Josiephine was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Josiephine alive today was born around 1922, making them about 103 years old. About 200 people named Josiephine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Josiephine most popular?
Josiephine peaked in 1882, reaching #560 nationally. See the whole 1882 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From the Hebrew Joseph, a sentence about a son being added to Josiephine
The story of Josiephine
The empress was not called Josephine until Napoleon decided she was. She had been christened Marie-Josephe-Rose and went by Rose; he disliked it, took the middle of her name and made it into something nobody had used before, and within a decade it was on birth certificates all over Europe. She was six years older than him, had two children by a husband guillotined in the Terror, and was divorced when she failed to produce an heir. She spent her last years at Malmaison assembling the most famous rose garden in the world and paying a botanical painter to record it, which is why we know exactly what she grew.
Meaning
he will add
Joseph is a Hebrew name that is a sentence: God will add another son. The feminine is French, built with an ending that French uses to make women's forms of men's names, and it arrived in English use in the early nineteenth century largely because of one woman. The extra letter in this spelling does nothing audible — the syllable it sits in is unstressed and barely voiced — but it makes the short form visible on the page, which is presumably the point.
How the name formed
- the Hebrew Joseph, a sentence about a son being added
- French builds a feminine with its own ending
- an emperor renames his wife and the name spreads
- American families write the short form into the spelling
- Josiephine appears in the record before 1880
Related forms: Josephine · Giuseppina · Josefina · Josefine
Pronouncing Josiephine
JO-suh-feen
Three syllables with the stress at the front and a secondary one at the back. The extra letter is silent; the syllable it belongs to is the weakest in the word.
Nicknames for Josiephine
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 girls named
- 192234 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #560reached in 1882
- Change vs 1960
- +40.0%7 in 1964, from 5
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.
Josiephine in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Josephine in French — spelling variant
- Giuseppina in Italian — same name
- Josefina in Spanish — same name
- Josefine in German — same name
Josiephines among us
people named Josiephine 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
Josiephine 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
- Josie and Jo are both immediately available and both are thoroughly current.
- The name is elegant and long without being difficult for anybody to say.
- It has an unusually well-documented history for a woman's name.
- The standard spelling is overwhelmingly commoner and the extra letter will be dropped.
- Many readers will treat the spelling as an error rather than a choice.
- Three syllables and a French ending make it a formal name for a small child.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Josiephine
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Josiephines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Josiephine are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Josiephine in 2025?
- Josiephine is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Josiephine with classmates?
- Josiephine 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 Josiephine? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Josiephine and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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