Joziah
Masculine · “Yahweh supports”
Joziah is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 5,364 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Joziah is Josiah with a single letter swapped, and behind it stands one of the oldest names in continuous use in English: the reforming king of Judah whose story fills the closing chapters of 2 Kings. The sound is unchanged — three syllables that rise in the middle and land softly — while the z marks it as an American spelling of recent decades. An ancient name in modern dress.
How old is the name Joziah?
Joziah first appears in US birth records in 1995 — 30 years ago. The typical Joziah is a kid of about 8 — this name's wave is very recent. About 5,300 people named Joziah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Joziah most popular?
Joziah peaked in 2016, reaching #685 nationally. Today it ranks #1015, 330 places below that high. See the whole 2016 chart.
Joziah appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Yoshiyahu to Joziah
The story of Joziah
The name begins as Hebrew Yoshiyahu, borne by the king of Judah who came to the throne as a child in the seventh century BCE and is remembered for reforming Temple worship. Greek-speaking translators of the Hebrew scriptures wrote it Josias, and that form passed into Latin and then into English Bibles as Josiah. English Puritans took it up as a given name in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and carried it to North America, where it never entirely disappeared. Joziah is a much later American respelling, part of a broad pattern of trading s for z in familiar names, and it arrived on the US charts only in the closing years of the twentieth century.
Meaning
Yahweh supports
The Hebrew Yoshiyahu joins the divine name to a verb rendered as 'supports', 'sustains' or, in some translations, 'heals'. All readings point the same direction; the name is a statement about God rather than about its bearer.
How the name formed
- Yoshiyahu
- Josias
- Josiah
- Joziah
Related forms: Yoshiyahu · Josiah · Josías · Josias · Josias · Giosia
Pronouncing Joziah
joh-ZY-uh
Stress on the middle syllable, which rhymes with 'my'. The z is pronounced exactly as the s in Josiah, so nothing about the sound needs explaining — only the spelling.
Nicknames for Joziah
High
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
- 1995
- Most boys named
- 2019365 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #685reached in 2016
- Change vs 2024
- −2.6%221 in 2025, from 227
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.
Joziah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Yoshiyahu in Hebrew — transliteration
- Josiah in English — spelling variant
- Josías in Spanish — same name
- Josias in French — same name
- Josias in Portuguese — same name
- Giosia in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Joziahs among us
people named Joziah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 7,729 born in 2025 was named Joziah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Joziah
- #1015
- Joziah on the 2025 chart
- #55
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Joziah went to 221 boys in 2025, but Josiah and Josiyah are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 5,781, which makes it the 55th most-given boys’ name of the year — 960 places above the chart.
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 boy in 295 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,729 for Joziah 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 Gil test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Joziah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Gil climbed just as high around 1957, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Gil's path sketches the road Joziah is walking now.
Joziah 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
Where Joziah is headed
Joziah is easing off slowly — about 17% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium 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.
Joziah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Joziah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Sounds identical to Josiah, a name English speakers have known for centuries, so no one will hesitate over how to say it.
- Carries a documented line back to Hebrew scripture and a named king of Judah — a long record, not a recent invention.
- Comes with short forms already in use: Joe, Joz, Siah, Joey.
- Recognizable across Spanish, Portuguese and French in its Josias form, which travels usefully in a bilingual family.
- Uncommon enough that a child is unlikely to share the name in a classroom.
- The spelling will need saying aloud, letter by letter, for life. Josiah is what most people will write first, and forms, teachers and coffee cups will default to it.
- Because the z spelling is recent, it reads as of its moment in a way the s spelling does not — a Joziah will be placed, roughly, in a generation by name alone.
- By sound, the name is not rare at all: a Joziah may well meet Josiahs and be grouped with them, which is either useful or slightly annoying depending on the day.
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What they receive
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Joziah
Masculine · #1015 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Joziahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,300 people named Joziah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Joziah?
- Joziah is one of 3 recorded spellings. Josiah is the more common one — 5,509 births in 2025 against 221 for Joziah.
- How popular is the name Joziah in 2025?
- Joziah ranks #1015 among US boy names in 2025, with 221 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Joziah?
- About 1 in every 7,729 US boys born in 2025 was named Joziah — 221 in all.
- Will my child share the name Joziah with classmates?
- Joziah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Joziah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zayan#1015 · Kace#1015 · Grey#1014 · Maurice#1018 · Jadiel#1018 · Alfonso#1012 · Chozyn#1018 · Allan#1012
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Joziah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Joziah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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