The first name Joshua is derived from the Hebrew word ‘yehōšūa” and means ‘Yahweh is Salvation’. Probably the best known Joshua is the Hebrew leader from the time of the Exodus, who plays an important role in several books of the Bible.
Joshua is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
The first name Joshua is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #37 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Joshua, accounting for approximately 0.50 % of all newborn boys. In total, there are currently 1,229,726 people – children, adults and seniors – named Joshua living in the United States, which is approximately 0.37 % of the entire population.
The first name Joshua is derived from the Hebrew word ‘yehōšūa” and means ‘Yahweh is Salvation’. Probably the best known Joshua is the Hebrew leader from the time of the Exodus, who plays an important role in several books of the Bible.
Joshua Slocum (1844 – 1909)
The Nova Scotian-born American was a seaman and an adventurer. He was the first to sail single-handedly around the world. The journey lasted three years and two months from 1895 to 1898. He went missing during another voyage in 1909 and was declared legally dead in 1924.
Joshua Foer (*1982)
The freelance journalist and author writes with a focus on science. His work have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post, among others. Foer is best known for his 2011 nonfiction book “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”.
Joshua Wong (*1996)
Wong is an activist and politician based in Hong Kong. He rose to international prominence during the 2014 Hong Kong protests, also called Umbrella Revolution, and was jailed several times in this context. In 2017, Wong was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Joshua Oppenheimer (*1974)
The American-British film director is based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is known for his Oscar-nominated documentaries “The Act of Killing” (2012) and “The Look of Silence” (2016). Oppenheimer was a MacArthur Fellow in 2014.
When you hear the name Joshua, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Joshua? Are you also called Joshua? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
lies the Joshua Tree National Park. The park includes parts of two deserts, the Mojave Desert and the Colorado Desert.
the Joshua Tree Inn was built. The Spanish Colonial style inn serves as a hotel and is just a few miles away from the Joshua Tree National Park.
American Civil War general Joshua L. Chamberlain opened as a museum in 1984. It is located in Brunswick, Maine, and gives insights into life in the 19th century.
designed most of the buildings of the Joshua Tree Retreat Center in Joshua Tree, California, USA. Among others, the buildungs are used by students of Mentalphysics.
History tends to focus on the most famous and the best. But even those who play second fiddle leave their mark: Joshua is one of those names without which the orchestra would be incomplete. In fact, Joshua has reached the SmartGenius top ranking of #3 more than once - and again, not too long ago, the last time being in 2006. But even though the peak of popularity was not so long ago, the name Joshua has been given to newborn boys every year since records began. Joshua is a name of exceptional, enduring popularity, carrying the special vibes of the 20th century into the 21st.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Joshua was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
The popularity of the traditional name Joshua peaked only recently: the name has definitely arrived in the 21st century. Joshua has made it into the top ten more than once, in 2022 it was #62 in our statistics: the chances of meeting a Joshua are pretty high these days. Traditional names often prove to be perennial favorites, so who knows, maybe Joshua will eventually become one of the most popular names of all time.
Regardless of where you live in the US, chances are you know someone called Joshua. Because: There are men and boys named Joshua in every state in the USA. If this does not sound particularly spectacular to you, you should know that of the nearly 50,000 different male first names that occur in the USA, only 386 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Joshua is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 10 of the most popular male first names, for example in Utah, where Joshua ranks on place 8, making it one of the most common male first names in the entire state. The greatest chance of meeting Joshua, however, is in Alaska, where one in 78 boys and men bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 136 men and boys and in New Jersey, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 194 men and boys for their name before you once get Joshua as an answer.
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 six letters, the name Joshua is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven letters or more. 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.
If your name is Joshua 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...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Joshua, you can simply say:
Joker
Orange
Sun
Hat
Unicorn
Apple
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Joshua
Joshua
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
J
O
S
H
U
A
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
H
U
A
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. Joshua sounds like this:
