Joshua
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The name Joshua comes from the Hebrew name "Yehoshua," meaning "God is deliverance" or "Yahweh is salvation"
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈdʒɑˌʃuə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Joshua is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 100th most common given name.
- USUnited States1 in 354(measured from records)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 489
- NGNigeria≈1 in 554
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #236 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 655 (measured from records)
- 1 in 354 (inferred from the name graph)
939,718 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The name Joshua comes from the Hebrew name "Yehoshua," meaning "God is deliverance" or "Yahweh is salvation." In the Bible, the most famous Joshua was Moses's successor who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. A more minor biblical figure with this name was a governor of Jerusalem during the reign of the reforming King Josiah.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Joshua 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #100 | 939,718 | 1 in 354 | 938K | Joshua | 655 |
| CN China | — | ≈930,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Joshua | 59 |
| NG Nigeria | #73 | ≈390,000 est. | ≈1 in 554 | — | Joshua | 146 |
| GB United Kingdom | #164 | ≈75,000 est. | ≈1 in 875 | 1K | Joshua | 360 |
| PH Philippines | #225 | ≈65,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Joshua | 180 |
| AU Australia | #88 | ≈52,000 est. | ≈1 in 489 | 263 | Joshua | 341 |
| NZ New Zealand | #142 | ≈6,100 est. | ≈1 in 805 | — | Joshua | 168 |
| GY Guyana | — | 1,628 | 1 in 461 | 1.6K | — | 22 |
939,718 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); 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)
Joshua 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.
The name Joshua is a timeless biblical name meaning 'Yahweh is salvation.' It conveys strength, leadership, and faithfulness, borne by two significant Old Testament figures: Joshua, Moses' successor who led Israel into the Promised Land, and Joshua the High Priest, who was instrumental in rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Joshua is a classic biblical name of Hebrew origin meaning 'Yahweh is salvation.' It is famously associated with Moses's successor who led Israel into the Promised Land, but it also appears in the genealogy of Jesus, giving the name deep historical and spiritual roots.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Joshua, meaning 'God is salvation,' is associated with the revered High Priest who led the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. It carries connotations of spiritual leadership, restoration, and divine deliverance.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Joshua is the English form of the Hebrew name Yehoshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation." The Greek equivalent is Iēsous, from which the name Jesus is derived.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Joshua, or its later form Jeshua (Hebrew: יְהוֹשֻׁוּעַ, Yəhōšūaʿ or יֵשׁוּעַ, Yēšūaʿ), means "Yahweh is salvation" or "The Lord saves".
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
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)
- Joshua Reynoldsb. 1723GBEnglish painter (1723–1792)
- Stephen Sondheimb. 1930USnot in their usual nameAmerican composer and lyricist (1930–2021)
- Joshua Jacksonb. 1978CACanadian actor
- Josh Keatonb. 1979USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Josh Gadb. 1981USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1981)
- Josh Peckb. 1986USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and comedian (born 1986)
- Josh O'Connorb. 1990GBnot in their usual nameBritish actor (born 1990)
- Josh Hutchersonb. 1992USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Joshua Kimmichb. 1995DEGerman association football player (born 1995)
- Joshua Bassettb. 2000USAmerican actor and singer-songwriter
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 146 sources across 79 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 938K | #30 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 4.8K | — |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 1.6K | #18 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.5K | #30 |
| GB United Kingdom | ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024) | 2024 | 1K | #50 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2023 | 263 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2024 | 105 | #76 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 86 | #15 |
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
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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
- Is Joshua a male or female name?
- Joshua is a male 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.
- Where does the name Joshua come from?
- The name Joshua comes from the Hebrew name "Yehoshua," meaning "God is deliverance" or "Yahweh is salvation." In the Bible, the most famous Joshua was Moses's successor who led the Israelites into the… Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Joshua?
- In the etymology graph, Jesus, Jason and Isa are forms of the same name in other languages; Josh is a recorded short or pet form.
- How common is the name Joshua?
- In the United States, the national register counted 939,718 people named Joshua in 2020, about 1 in 354 residents.
- How common is Joshua compared with other names?
- In the United States, Joshua is the 100th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Joshua have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 940 thousand people named Joshua, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled joshua.
- Where is Joshua most common?
- Joshua is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 354 people carrying it.
- What does the name Joshua mean?
- Recorded meaning: The name Joshua comes from the Hebrew name "Yehoshua," meaning "God is deliverance" or "Yahweh is salvation."
- How do you pronounce Joshua?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈdʒɑˌʃuə/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Joshua?
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/joshuaThe 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, “Joshua” — the 100th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.