Joseph

girls:

10.7k births since 1880

#1524 (73rd percentile)

boys:

2.7M births since 1880

#7 (100th percentile)

overall:

2.7M births since 1880

#8 (100th percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Joseph is the #8 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 2,665,333 recorded births since 1880. This represents the 99.9% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 99.9% of all names). For boys, it ranks #7 (99.9% percentile) for all time with 2,654,627 births since 1880. For girls, it ranks #1,524 (73.3% percentile) for all time with 10,706 births since 1880.

Joseph has appeared in U.S. birth records since the beginning of our dataset in 1880

The name Joseph has been given almost exclusively to boys, with 99.6% of all recorded births being male.

For boys, Joseph reached its peak popularity in 2003, achieving the 99.4% percentile (ranked #6) with 10,178 births per million. The name was most common in 1914, with 27,555 births per million (ranked 99.1% percentile). Since reaching a high point around 1984, the popularity of this name for boys has been declining. Currently, Joseph ranks #29 for boys (96.9% percentile) with 3,952 births per million, which is 14.3% of its peak share of births.

For girls, Joseph reached its peak popularity in 1928, achieving the 27.6% percentile (ranked #439) with 152 births per million. The name was most common in 1928, with 152 births per million (ranked 27.6% percentile). Since reaching a high point in 2019, the popularity of this name for girls has been declining. Currently, Joseph ranks #940 for girls (0.7% percentile) with 7 births per million, which is 4.5% of its peak share of births.

This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Joseph".

1880 2023 18802023

Key Statistics

Total Births
10,706
Peak Births
227
Peak Year
1928
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
27.6%
Current Percentile
0.7%
Peak Rank
#439
Current Rank
#940
Female statistics
Total Births
2,654,627
Peak Births
32,750
Peak Year
2003
First Recorded
1880
Peak Percentile
99.4%
Current Percentile
96.9%
Peak Rank
#6
Current Rank
#29
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Joseph

Our model has identified 4 different pronunciations for the name Joseph. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 45.8% confident that Joseph is pronounced as JOH-zuhf, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is JOH-suhf, at 40.7% confidence, with 2 syllables.

2
45.8%
2
40.7%
JOH-zuhf (2 syllables)
Verified
45.8% confidence
JH OW1 Z AH0 F

Possible Additional Pronunciations

If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Joseph? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Joseph. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Joseph, please vote using the thumbs up button.

About Pronunciation Data

Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.

For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.

The raw pronunciations shown (like JH OW1 Z AH0 F) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.

Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.

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