Josephus
About 1,211 American babies have been named Josephus since 1882, most of them around 1923. It has not appeared in the national data since 2023. About 490 Josephuses are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 59.
Popularity, 1880–2025
boys named Josephus
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 1,211
- Estimated living today
- 490
- Median age today
- 59
- Peak year
- 1923
- Best rank
- 1,385th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1882
How old the living Josephuses are
born that year still alive today
Of the 1,211 babies given the name since 1882, about 490 are alive — 40 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1966 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
From Latin Iōsēphus, from Ancient Greek Ἰώσηπος, Ἰωσήφ.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Josephuss
- Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti (1735–1805)Austrian naturalist
- Josephus Daniels (1862–1948)American diplomat and newspaper editor
- Johannes Josephus Aarts (1871–1934)Dutch painter and printmaker
People named Josephus with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Josephus is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Josephus is most concentrated in South Carolina (14.4×), North Carolina (12.3×), Georgia (10.9×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1923
The most popular boys’ names the year Josephus peaked:
Josephus among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Josephus | 16,863 | 68,109 |
| the Netherlands girls | Josephus | — | 1,011 |
Among girls in the Netherlands this is mostly a middle name: of the 1,011 who carry it, fewer than five go by it.
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Josephus against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.