Josselin
Feminine · “of the Gauts”
Josselin is a town in Brittany with a castle on the river and about two and a half thousand people. One family has held the castle since the fourteenth century, which makes it one of the longest continuous tenures in Europe, and the town takes its name from an eleventh-century lord called Josselin.
How old is the name Josselin?
Josselin first appears in US birth records in 1992 — 33 years ago. The typical Josselin alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 900 people named Josselin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Josselin most popular?
Josselin peaked in 2007, reaching #2822 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 9,110 places below that high. See the whole 2007 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Gaut to Josselin
The story of Josselin
The name went from a person to a castle to a town and then back to people. A Breton lord built a fortress above the Oust in the eleventh century, the settlement took his name, the castle passed by marriage to the Rohan family in the fourteenth, and they have it still. The French spelling detail is worth having. French voices a single s between two vowels — rose, maison, base are all said with a z — so any word that needs a hard s in that position doubles it. Josselin, poisson, aussi. English does not have the rule, which is why the double s looks decorative here and is not.
Meaning
of the Gauts
From Gautelen, a Germanic diminutive of the tribal name Gaut, which reached Brittany and Normandy with Frankish settlement. The doubled s is the French spelling: a single s between vowels is said as a z in French, so two are needed to keep it hard.
How the name formed
- Gaut
- Gautelen
- Josselin
Related forms: Josselin · Jodoc
Pronouncing Josselin
JOSS-uh-lin
Three syllables, stress on the first, in American use. French says zhos-LAN, with two syllables, a soft opening and a nasal ending. In Spanish-speaking families it is ho-se-LEEN.
Nicknames for Josselin
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
- 1992
- Most girls named
- 200764 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2822reached in 2007
- Change vs 2024
- −61.1%7 in 2025, from 18
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.
Josselin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Josselin in French — same name
- Jodoc in Breton — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Josselins among us
people named Josselin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Josselin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Josselin
- #11932
- Josselin on the 2025 chart
- #929
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Josselin went to 7 girls in 2025, but Josselyn is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 31, which makes it the 929th most-given girls’ name of the year — 11,003 places above the chart.
- Josselyn24
- Josselin7
About 1 girl in 51,847 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 229,610 for Josselin itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Sophy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Josselin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sophy climbed just as high around 1918, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sophy's path sketches the road Josselin is walking now.
Josselin sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Josselin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Josselin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented Breton place with a castle that is still standing and still lived in.
- The spelling is genuinely French rather than an American respelling.
- Three short forms, all of which are names elsewhere.
- Jocelyn is far commoner in America and this spelling will be corrected toward it.
- English, French and Spanish speakers say it three different ways.
- The doubled s looks like decoration to an English reader and is a rule in French.
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Josselin
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Josselins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Josselin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Josselin?
- Josselin is one of 2 recorded spellings. Josselyn is the more common one — 24 births in 2025 against 7 for Josselin.
- How popular is the name Josselin in 2025?
- Josselin ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Josselin?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Josselin — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Josselin with classmates?
- Josselin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Josselin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Josselin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Josselin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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