Joshua
The story
Joshua is the English form of the Hebrew Yehoshua, God is salvation: the name of the man who took over from Moses and led the Israelites into the promised land, the general whose trumpets, in the famous story, brought down the walls of Jericho. The same Hebrew name, traveling through Greek, also gave the world the name Jesus, which is partly why Joshua has never been far from Jewish and Christian families alike. In America it long sat on the quieter shelf of Bible names, then came roaring back: Joshua boomed through the 1970s and 1980s and stood among the country's dominant boys' names in the 1990s and 2000s. The wave has receded since, as every wave that size must, but the name underneath is unbothered: it has already survived three thousand years, and a slower decade or two will not trouble it.
Joshua's name family
One shared root links 4 names across 2 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Yehoshua "Yahweh is salvation"; Jesus continues the same name through its contracted late-Hebrew form Yeshua
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Joshua peaked in the 1990s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
2,557 people · the #4,352 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 76,923 · median age 11
Among people named Joshua living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 554 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Joshua
Most people given the name Joshua in the United States were born between 1980 and 2009. The Joshua you meet today is most often in his 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Joshua deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Joshua truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Joshua fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Names like Joshua · Nicknames for Joshua · Korean American baby names
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