Josias
given name · Latin script
Meaning: French form of Josiah, from Hebrew Yoshiyahu 'Yahweh supports/heals'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʒoziɐs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Josias is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- PYParaguay≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 4.2K
- USUnited States1 in 132K
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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 144 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
49,887 people, 2022
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Paraguay, est.
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)
French form of Josiah, from Hebrew Yoshiyahu 'Yahweh supports/heals'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Josias 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | #423 | 49,887 | 1 in 4.2K | 57K | Josias | 129 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈6,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.4K | — | Josias | 18 |
| PY Paraguay | #257 | ≈5,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Josias | 16 |
| US United States | — | 2,523 | 1 in 132K | 2.5K | Josias | 144 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 2,520 | 1 in 6.7K | 2.5K | — | 22 |
| AO Angola | #485 | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Josias | 23 |
49,887 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INEC — civil registry names. 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)
Josias is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A male given name from Hebrew, the New Testament Greek form of Josiah.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Portuguese, Josiah (biblical king)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, D’origine hébraïque, signifie « Dieu guérit ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Francis Josias, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeldb. 1697DEduke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1697-1764)
- Josiah Bartlettb. 1729USnot in their usual nameAmerican physician and judge, signatory of the Declaration of Independence (1729–1795)
- Josiah Wedgwoodb. 1730GBnot in their usual nameEnglish potter and founder of the Wedgwood company (1730–1795)
- Prince Josias of Coburgb. 1737DEAustrian general
- Josiah Warrenb. 1798USnot in their usual nameAmerican social reformer, philosopher, inventor, musician, and author (1798–1874)
- Josiah Willard Gibbsb. 1839USnot in their usual nameAmerican scientist (1839–1903)
- Josias von Heeringenb. 1850DEGerman general (1850-1926)
- Josiah Royceb. 1855USnot in their usual nameAmerican philosopher (1855–1916)
- Josiah McCrackenb. 1874USnot in their usual nameAmerican football player, athlete and professor of medicine (1874-1962)
- Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmontb. 1896DEGerman politician (NSDAP), MdR, SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS (1896-1967)
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 66 sources across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 57K | #720 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 50K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 50K | #569 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 2.5K | #420 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.5K | #6,382 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 807 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 272 | #569 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 247 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | 2024 | 142 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 8 | #6,382 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 are other forms of the name Josias?
- In the etymology graph, Josiah, Jasiah and Joziah are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Josias mean, and where does it come from?
- French form of Josiah, from Hebrew Yoshiyahu 'Yahweh supports/heals'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- How do you pronounce Josias?
- A machine transcription gives /ʒoziɐs/ (IPA) for Portuguese.
- Is Josias a male or female name?
- Josias 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.
- In which country does Josias have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 50 thousand people named Josias, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled josias.
- How common is the name Josias?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 49,887 people named Josias in 2022, about 1 in 4.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Josias compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Josias is the 423rd most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Josias?
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/josiasThe 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, “Josias” — the 423rd most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.