Josia
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Josia has been given to 149 babies in the U.S. since 1994. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 2008, with 13 recorded.
Babies named Josia, 2023
1 in 663,000
Josia over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Josia?
Josia had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2023, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2023
- 1 in 663,000
- 5 of 3,314,783 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 342,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2023
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,528 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Josia sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2023 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 459,528 children born in 2023 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Josia. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Josias were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Josia was born before 2008 — so the typical Josia is around 17 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2000s
- 50.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 92.4%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 144
- People you could plausibly meet
2000s — 50.7% of all recorded uses (73).
Is Josia 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
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 2008 (13)
- Years since peak
- 17
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 23.3% average annual change
Spellings of Josia
Josia is not the most common spelling — Joshua is, with 58.8% against Josia'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.
Josia around the world
Where Josia 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 & Wales2007–2007#5,201in 2007
- France1954–1990#2,913in 1990
- South Australia1978–1978#626in 1978
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Josia by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Josia
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Josia
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.