Yoseph
Masculine · “may God add”
Yoseph is Joseph written closer to its Hebrew shape, and the Hebrew is a small prayer: may God add. Rachel names her son that way in Genesis, asking for another after him, and the name has traveled through every language the Bible reached.
How old is the name Yoseph?
Yoseph first appears in US birth records in 1975 — 50 years ago. The typical Yoseph alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 900 people named Yoseph are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Yoseph most popular?
Yoseph peaked in 1986, reaching #2684 nationally. Today it ranks #4857, 2,173 places below that high. See the whole 1986 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Yosef to Yoseph
The story of Yoseph
Joseph is one of the very few names to be central in three scriptures: the son of Jacob whose brothers sell him into Egypt, the husband of Mary, and a prophet with a whole chapter of the Qur'an to himself. That gave it a reach almost no other name has. The spelling Yoseph keeps the Hebrew consonants and appears in Jewish families and in Ethiopian and Eritrean records, where Ge'ez and Amharic write the name the same way. American use draws on both of those.
Meaning
may God add; he will add
Hebrew Yosef, from a verb meaning to add or increase, spoken by Rachel at his birth as a request for another son. Greek made it Ioseph and Latin Ioseph, and English took the J from there.
How the name formed
- Yosef
- Ioseph
- Joseph
- Yoseph
Related forms: יוסף · Joseph · Yusuf · ዮሴፍ · José · Iosif
Pronouncing Yoseph
yoh-SEF
Two syllables with the stress at the end in Hebrew. English speakers usually say YO-sef with the weight in front, and both are ordinary in American families.
Nicknames for Yoseph
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
- 1975
- Most boys named
- 200537 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2684reached in 1986
- Change vs 2024
- +25.0%20 in 2025, from 16
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.
Yoseph in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- יוסף in Hebrew — transliteration
- Joseph in English — same name
- Yusuf in Arabic — same name
- ዮሴፍ in Amharic — transliteration
- José in Spanish — same name
- Iosif in Russian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York.
Yosephs among us
people named Yoseph are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 85,404 born in 2025 was named Yoseph
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Yoseph
- #4857
- Yoseph on the 2025 chart
- #545
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Yoseph went to 20 boys in 2025, but Yosef is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 433, which makes it the 545th most-given boys’ name of the year — 4,312 places above the chart.
- Yosef413
- Yoseph20
About 1 boy in 3,945 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 85,404 for Yoseph 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 Marck test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Yoseph's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Marck climbed just as high around 1960, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Marck's path sketches the road Yoseph is walking now.
Yoseph 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
Yoseph beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Yoseph in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is the same name as Joseph, so it is legible in almost every culture on earth.
- Yossi and Joe are ready short forms for very different settings.
- It keeps the Hebrew or Ethiopian shape visible on a document in a way Joseph does not.
- American forms will default to Joseph, and the correction becomes routine.
- Yosef, Yoseph and Yossef are all used, so records within a family may differ.
- The stress moves between Hebrew and English, giving two versions of the name.
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What they receive
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Yoseph
Masculine · #4857 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Yosephs 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 Yoseph are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Yoseph?
- Yoseph is one of 2 recorded spellings. Yosef is the more common one — 413 births in 2025 against 20 for Yoseph.
- How popular is the name Yoseph in 2025?
- Yoseph ranks #4857 among US boy names in 2025, with 20 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Yoseph?
- About 1 in every 85,404 US boys born in 2025 was named Yoseph — 20 in all.
- Will my child share the name Yoseph with classmates?
- Yoseph will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Yoseph
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Carlyle#4857 · Russ#4857 · Hercules#4857 · Marcial#4857 · Lauro#4857 · Marin#4857 · Gil#4857 · Aloysius#4857
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Yoseph? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Yoseph and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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