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Joab

#2,319 in 2025Boys' name

Yahweh is father

Joab has been given to 1,000 babies in the U.S. since 1965. In 2025 it ranked #2,319 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2025, with 60 recorded.

Babies named Joab, 2025

1 in 55,300

Joab over time, 1880–2025

Boys
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Joab: meaning, origin, and history

Yahweh is father

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Joab means

Joab means “Yahweh is father”.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,000 boys were recorded with the name Joab between 1965 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 60 in 2025; its best national rank was #2,319 in 2025.

Over 5 years its rank rose, from #4,068 in 2020 to #2,319 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank rose, from #3,398 in 2015 to #2,319 in 2025.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Joab?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 55,300
60 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 28,500
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#2,319
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
38,299 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Joab sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 38,299 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Joab. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Joabs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Joab was born before 2011 — so the typical Joab is around 14 today.

Median birth year
2011
About 14 years old
Biggest decade
2010s
26.7% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
70.7%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
1,000
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2010s — 26.7% of all recorded uses (267).

Is Joab rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
+532
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
+1,749
Places climbed
Rank vs 10 years ago
+1,079
Places climbed
Births vs 10 years ago
1.82×
More babies than then
Share of its own peak
100.0%
Peak was 2025 (60)
Years since peak
Peaking now
At its all-time high
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,319
2025

Spellings of Joab

Joab is not the most common spelling — John is, with 62.8% against Joab's 0.01%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Joab is used

Across 1910–2025, Joab was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 242,172 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 100,000
  2. 2Texas1 in 100,000
  3. 3Florida1 in —
  4. 4New York1 in —
  5. 5Tennessee1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Joab has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Joab around the world

Where Joab ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2022
    #4,790
    in 2022
  • France
    2011–2011
    #4,469
    in 2011
  • Canada
    2017–2017
    #2,569
    in 2017
  • South Australia
    1977–2006
    #657
    in 2006

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Joab by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#2,319
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Up 1,749
Best rank ever
#2,319
2025
Peak year
2025
60 that year
First recorded
1965
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,000
Count in 2025
60

Names similar to Joab

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

JoahJoaoJoasJoashJoanJoaquimJoachimJoannJoanneJoaJoalJoangelJoannaEyoabJoakimJoahanJoanthanJoandyJoaopedroJoaquinJoandryJoahnYoabJoakin

Sibling names for Joab

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Joab

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