Joy
given name · Latin script
Meaning: English word name from joy, ultimately Latin gaudia 'rejoicing'
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʒɔɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Joy is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the Philippines it is the 8th most common given name.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 321(inferred from the name graph)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 804
- SGSingapore≈1 in 1.7K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #580 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 572 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 321 (inferred from the name graph)
≈680,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
English word name from joy, ultimately Latin gaudia 'rejoicing'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Joy counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈680,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Joy | 60 |
| NG Nigeria | #36 | ≈670,000 est. | ≈1 in 321 | — | Joy | 139 |
| PH Philippines | #8 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 804 | — | Joy | 189 |
| US United States | #319 | 117,520 | 1 in 2.8K | 116K | Joy | 572 |
| GB United Kingdom | #313 | ≈31,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Joy | 267 |
| SG Singapore | #154 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Joy | 119 |
| NZ New Zealand | #162 | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Joy | 133 |
| GY Guyana | — | 664 | 1 in 1.1K | 664 | — | 12 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Joy is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, from the female name Joia or the common noun joy; first attested Manser filius Joie 1186 P (Lancashire)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A feeling of extreme happiness or cheerfulness, especially related to the acquisition or expectation of something good.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Joy är ett engelskt namn som betyder ’glädje, lycka’.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Origine anglaise, signifie « joie ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, kohtine; great joy, kohune wa
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Roxanne Seemanb. 1954USnot in their usual nameAmerican songwriter and lyricist
- Fran Drescherb. 1957USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Lisa Randallb. 1962USnot in their usual nameAmerican theoretical physicist
- Tracee Ellis Rossb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1972)
- Chelsea Handlerb. 1975USnot in their usual nameAmerican comedian, actress, author and talk show host
- Kristen Schaalb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Bethany Joy Galeottib. 1981USAmerican actress
- Gina Caranob. 1982USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and former mixed martial artist (born 1982)
- Da'Vine Joy Randolphb. 1986USAmerican actress
- Amanda Michalkab. 1991USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and actress
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 106 sources across 56 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 116K | #482 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.7K | #482 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 747 | — |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 664 | #125 |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Joy mean, and where does it come from?
- English word name from joy, ultimately Latin gaudia 'rejoicing'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Joy a male or female name?
- Joy is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Joy have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 684 thousand people named Joy in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled joy.
- How common is the name Joy?
- In the United States, the national register counted 117,520 people named Joy in 2020, about 1 in 2.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Joy compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Joy is the 8th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
- What are other forms of the name Joy?
- In the etymology graph, Joi and Joye are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Joy?
- A machine transcription gives /dʒɔɪ/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Joy?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/joyThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Joy” — the 8th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.