Josephine
123,986 people in America carry this name — ranked #459 of 923.
Carried mostly by the Greatest Generation.
Say it JOH suh feen
3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part
Phonetic transcription
JH OW1 S AH0 F IY2 N — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.
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People counted 123,986 2020 Census
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Per 100,000 41.1 about 1 in 2,673 people
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As a surname No not above the reporting threshold
What Josephine means and where it comes from
Hebrew in origin, reading literally as “addition”.
Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.
Josephine name popularity by year
314,436 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1918, with 8,709 of them.
Most people carrying it were born in the 1920s. It has been given more often of late.
Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.
Middle names for Josephine
Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.
- Josephine Mary
- Josephine Susan
- Josephine Karen
- Josephine Sarah
- Josephine Lisa
- Josephine Michelle
- Josephine Ashley
- Josephine Laura
Better avoided
- Josephine Nancy — runs together
- Josephine Nicole — runs together
- Josephine Emma — runs together
Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.
A name from before the war
The year most children were called Josephine was 1918. Names of that age tend to come back once their owners are grandparents.
Boys or girls: who is called Josephine?
As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.
Full names people carry
- Josephine Johnson ≈ 700 people
- Josephine Jones ≈ 500 people
- Josephine Garcia ≈ 400 people
- Josephine Miller ≈ 400 people
- Josephine Davis ≈ 400 people
- Josephine Wilson ≈ 300 people
- Josephine Anderson ≈ 300 people
- Josephine Thomas ≈ 300 people
The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.
The same name abroad
- Joe English
- Sipp Bav
- Sepp Swiss|Bav
- Seph Bav
- Sefa Swiss
- Pepe Spanish
- Pepa Spanish
- Jozo Ill
- Joze Portuguese
- Joza Slov
- Josh Bav
- Jose Span.|Port
- Jeps Lett
- Seppi Swiss
Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.
Where the name Josephine is most common in the US
In Alaska the name is given 2.2 times as often as it is across the country.
- Alaska ×2.2
- Minnesota ×1.7
- Colorado ×1.7
- New Mexico ×1.6
- Montana ×1.5
Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.
Who answers to it now
- White alone (non-Hispanic) — 60.6%
- Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 12.1%
- Hispanic or Latino origin — 14.4%
- Two or more races — 3.2%
- Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 8.7%
- American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.9%
Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.
Try it Name Matcher
Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.
The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.
Where this page gets its numbers
- Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
- Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
- Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.
Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Hebrew origin