Josue
Meaning
“God is salvation (French form of Joshua); a common Haitian given name”
The story
Josue is Joshua by another route. Both come from the Hebrew Yehoshua, "God is salvation," but Josue is the form carried through French and Spanish, and it is a common given name in Haiti and across Latin America. In the US it tracked immigration and the Spanish-speaking population: almost unused before mid-century, then 1,443 in the 1970s, 10,816 in the 1990s, and over 18,000 in the 2000s, with about 6,800 so far this decade. It is a boy's name. The accent belongs on the end in its home languages, Josué, though American paperwork often drops it. Where Joshua reads plainly English, Josue keeps its passport, a small mark of the family that carried it, which is exactly the kind of thing a name is for.
Josue'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
In written records since at least 1750: the Douay-Rheims Bible, Challoner revision of 1750.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Josue peaked in the 2010s.
Popularity in Brazil
112,149 people · the #288 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,812 · median age 28
Among people named Josue living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 2010s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 12,195 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Josue
Most people given the name Josue in the United States are teenagers or young adults today.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Josue deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Josue 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 Josue fits with your family’s names and surname.
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