Joshua

Meaning & origin

Moses picked his own successor, and American parents of the late twentieth century ratified the choice. Joshua, Hebrew Yehoshua, "Yahweh is salvation", was the defining biblical boys' name of the 1970s-90s, peaking in 1985 during a years-long residency near the top of the charts. An entire generation answers to Josh.

The name has been in continuous American use since records began in 1880, and the post-1988 decline has been notably orderly: in 2025 it still ranked 66th, given to about 1 in 358 newborn boys, with its strongest numbers in the District of Columbia, Delaware, and Maryland. That puts Joshua in the same phase Michael and Matthew occupy, past its boom, nowhere near obscurity, increasingly read as a solid classic rather than a dated trend.

There is also a quiet piece of trivia inside it: through Greek, the shortened form of Yehoshua became the name Jesus, making Joshua the Old Testament's closest etymological kin to the New Testament's central name. Few top-100 staples carry that much linguistic history under such an easygoing nickname.

Joshua is the English form of the Hebrew Yehoshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ), "Yahweh is salvation". Its biblical bearer was Moses' aide and successor, the general who led Israel across the Jordan and gives his name to the Book of Joshua. The same Hebrew name, in its shortened Aramaic form Yeshua, was rendered into Greek as Iesous, the source of the name Jesus, making Joshua and Jesus etymological siblings. English use revived with the Reformation and the Puritans, and the name crossed the Atlantic early; it appears in American Social Security data from the first year of records in 1880. Its great modern era came in the 1970s through 1990s, when it sat in the national top 5 for years.