Josh: Meaning of Baby Name Josh

About the Name Josh

Josh is the everyday short form of Joshua, the Hebrew name Yehoshua traditionally understood to mean "Jehovah is salvation." Borne in scripture by the successor of Moses who led the Israelites into the promised land, Joshua has been a staple of the English-speaking world for centuries, and Josh emerged as its warm, casual nickname — eventually standing on its own as a given name in birth records. Its single brisk syllable carries all the approachability of a pet form offered up as a full name.

One bearer who helped keep the short form in the cultural eye is actor Josh Hartnett (born 1978), whose decades-long career has produced a string of defining American film roles, including his 2001 lead as Trevor in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor. His prominence in that era coincided with the name's window of independent popularity.

As a formal given name, Josh first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000, peaked in 2004 at #663, and slipped from the rankings after 2009, when it sat at #976, having held #810 a year earlier and #726 in 2007. That fairly short run reflects its role as a casual alternative to the fuller Joshua, which has long been the standard registered form. Unpretentious and instantly familiar, Josh reads as easygoing and friendly — the kind of relaxed name that feels like an old friend on first hearing.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Josh

1,531

Hebrew baby names in our dictionary

695

Hebrew male names

90

4-letter J-names in our dictionary

431

J-male names total

2000–2009

years of US SSA records (10 total)

2,656

total US births named Josh (all years)

US Popularity History (2000–2009)

📉 Falling fast: Josh dropped 313 places in the US boys ranking over the last 5 years (#663 in 2004 → #976 in 2009).

Annual US births named Josh by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2007 with 316 boys named Josh (boy rank #726 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2009, ranked #976 for boys (205 US births). That's 250 places below its 2007 peak.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.

Famous People Named Josh

1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Josh.

Josh Hartnett — Movie Actor (1978)

Browse more famous Joshs and similar first names →

Looking for names like Josh?

A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.

See all names like Josh →

Compare Josh to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Josh against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Josh vs Liam 239,320 births since 2014

Josh vs Noah 230,181 births since 2014

Josh vs Oliver 164,076 births since 2014

Josh vs William 159,918 births since 2014

Josh vs James 157,850 births since 2014

Josh vs Elijah 153,351 births since 2014

Josh vs Benjamin 147,449 births since 2014

Josh vs Lucas 141,302 births since 2014

Compare to a different name →