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The first name 
Jose

Jose is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.

The name Jose is very popular!

The first name Jose is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #78 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Jose, accounting for approximately 0.30 % of all newborn boys. In total, there are currently 576,054 people – children, adults and seniors – named Jose living in the United States, which is approximately 0.17 % of the entire population.

You won't believe all there is 
to discover about the name
 
Jose

What does the name 
Jose mean?

The name Jose is of Spanish origin and is derived from the Hebrew name Joseph, which means ‘God will add’ or ‘God will increase’. The name Jose is often associated with God’s provision and blessings.

There is a... chess frontend called Jose. It is completely implemented in Java and thus runs platform-independently on different operating systems.

Jose has many creative namesakes

An American actor

Jose Pablo Cantillo (*1979)
Born in Wisconsin, he moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. He appeared in Off-Broadway plays as well as minor tv guest roles. Since 2003, he lives in California and has had bigger roles in tv-series such as “Sons of Anarchy” and “The Walking Dead”.

A painter and sculptor

Jose Acosta (*1966)
The Cuban-born American artist is known as a painter and a sculptor. After attending classes at the Art Students League of New York, he began his professional career in 2004. Since, he has shown his work in over 300 group and about 20 solo shows.

A dancer and choreographer

Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza
Born José Gutiérrez, he is a dancer, choreographer, and one of the best known personalities of the New York City ballroom scene. The native New Yorker attended the prestigious LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and worked with Madonna.

A molecular biologist

Jose V. Lopez
The American-Filipino molecular biologist is a professor of biology at the Nova Southeastern University in Florida since 2007. Lopez co-founded the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA), which seeks to promote research and student training.

Go on a journey to places 
with your name

When you hear the name Jose, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Jose? Are you also called Jose? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...

Two hurricanes…

were named Jose. One appeared along the East Coast of the United States in 2017, the other in the Atlantic Ocean in 1999.

A major city…

in northern California is called San Jose. The Peralta Adobe, the city’s oldest standing building, was constructed in 1797.

In the Philippines,…

you can find the city San Jose del Monte with about 650,000 people living there. It was founded in 1752 and named after the biblical Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus.

The Jose Building…

is a big apartment house in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

In the heart of…

the Huron National Forest in Michigan, the Jose Lake is located. The nearby resort offers lots of activities such as fishing and kayaking.

Jose -
in the 2000s more popular than ever before

If we dig really deep into our statistics, we find that there are very few boys' names that have been consistently popular for so long that they have been given to newborns in every single year since the beginning of our records in 1880. In fact, there are only 442 boys' names that appear in our statistics in every single year, and Jose is one of those very special classics. At the same time, Jose has never been more popular than it is in this century - in 2004 the name even made it to rank #28 of the most popular boys' names, easily landing in the top 100 of our SmartGenius first name statistics.

In years where the graph has no value, the name Jose was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.

Happy Birthday - 3,998 boys named Jose celebrate their second birthday this year

...because: In 2022, 3,998 boys were born and given the name Jose by their parents. That puts Jose at #90 on our list of most popular boys' names. It was much less popular in 1916 - only 698 parents chose this name for their newborn son and it ranked 169 on the popularity scale of all boys' names.

Jose has 4 letters 
and begins with a J

Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter J is the most popular first letter for boys’ names. 10.1% of all common boys’ names in the US start with this letter. The second most common first letter in boys’ names is A.

With four letters, the name Jose is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.

That means that if 10.1% of all boys’ names start with a J, this initial letter occurs nearly three times as often as all other letters on average. And, by the way, of all the boys’ names that begin with the letter J, the name James is the most common.

Other names with 
J, o, s and e

If you take all the letters in the name Jose – J, o, s and e – and put them together again, you can form another name, such as Joes.

With hands, flags and sounds 
How to say Jose

If your name is Jose and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...

This is how you spell the name Jose

So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Jose, you can simply say:

Joker

Orange

Sun

Elephant

This is how the name Jose is spelled in the NATO phonetic alphabet

The NATO alphabet often helps people spell words on the phone or radio when there are communication problems.

How do you write Jose in Braille?

Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.

Jose

Jose

You want to tell a deaf person that your name is Jose

Just use American Sign Language!

The name Jose is particularly colorful in the Semaphore flag signaling system!

These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.

J
O
S
E

Have you ever waved the name Jose

In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.

J
O
S
E

Beeping like crazy...

In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Jose sounds like this: