How popular is the baby name Joshua in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Joshua.

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Popularity of the baby name Joshua


Posts that mention the name Joshua

Top baby names in Hertfordshire (England), 2010

In Hertfordshire, the top ten baby boy names of 2010 were Jack, Oliver, Daniel, Thomas, Joshua, Alexander, Charlie, Harry, George and Joseph.

The top ten baby girl names were Isabelle, Daisy, Charlotte, Sophie, Sienna, Summer, Megan, Grace, Lucy and Olivia.

Unusual names like Hunni Princess, Blossom Bluebell and Ged Spartacus were also bestowed.

Sources: Ged Spartacus and Angel J among unusual baby names registered by Hertfordshire County Council, Hertfordshire welcomes Ged Spartacus and Storm (news release, now offline)

Popular baby names in New Zealand, 2010

Flag of New Zealand
Flag of New Zealand

The 100 most popular baby boy and baby girl names in New Zealand have been released. The winners for 2010 were Sophie (again) and Liam (beating previous #1 Jack).

Here are the top 10 lists…

Girl Names

  1. Sophie, 377 baby girls
  2. Olivia, 335
  3. Ruby, 322
  4. Charlotte, 305
  5. Isabella, 286
  6. Lily, 281
  7. Ella, 277
  8. Chloe, 262
  9. Emily, 232
  10. Emma, 228

Boy Names

  • Liam, 374 baby boys
  • James, 333
  • Oliver, 327
  • Jack, 325
  • William, 320
  • Joshua, 298
  • Benjamin, 286
  • Jacob, 285
  • Samuel, 282
  • Lucas, 271

Two interesting names I noticed in the top 100 were Sione and Pippa:

  • Sione, ranked 92nd for boys, seems to be a Tongan name. (There’s no s-sound in Maori.) In the trailer for the film Sione’s Wedding (2006) [vid], you can hear Sione at 0:07, 0:28 and 1:52. Sounds like see-O-nay or see-O-nee, or something in between.
  • Pippa, ranked 95th for girls, is a contraction/diminutive of Philippa. The popularity of this one might be attributable to New Zealand television personality Pippa Wetzell.

Just for reference, New Zealand has roughly 4.3 million residents. So, population-wise, it’s about the same size as Kentucky.

Source: The Department of Internal Affairs – New Zealand Government

Image: Adapted from Flag of New Zealand (public domain)

Popular baby names in England and Wales (UK), 2009

Flag of the United Kingdom
Flag of the United Kingdom

Just announced! The most popular baby boy names in England and Wales in 2009 were:

  1. Oliver
  2. Jack
  3. Harry
  4. Alfie
  5. Joshua
  6. Thomas
  7. Charlie
  8. William
  9. James
  10. Daniel

And the most popular baby girl names were:

  1. Olivia
  2. Ruby
  3. Chloe
  4. Emily
  5. Sophie
  6. Jessica
  7. Grace
  8. Lily
  9. Amelia
  10. Evie

The big news is that Oliver ousted former #1 Jack, which had been the top name for 14 years. And…now the top boy name and the top girl name sound eerily similar.

The biggest jumps within the top 100 were Lucas for boys (36th to 17th) and Maisie for girls (63rd to 34th). Newbies in the top 100 were Aiden, Arthur, Frederick, Stanley (!), Jude and Austin for boys and Heidi, Sara and Mya for girls.

Finally, looks like the ONS has a brand new baby names comparison tool for us to play with. Very cool.

Sources: Oliver and Olivia top names’ list, Office for National Statistics

Image: Adapted from Flag of the United Kingdom (public domain)

Popular baby names in the United States, 2009

Flag of the United States
Flag of the United States

It’s that time of year again! Here are the new top ten U.S. baby names for each gender:

Girl names

  1. Isabella (was 2nd)
  2. Emma (was 1st)
  3. Olivia (was 4th)
  4. Sophia (was 7th)
  5. Ava (was 5th)
  6. Emily (was 3rd)
  7. Madison (was 6th)
  8. Abigail (was 8th)
  9. Chloe (was 10th)
  10. Mia (was 14th)

Boy names

  1. Jacob (was 1st)
  2. Ethan (was 3rd)
  3. Michael (was 2nd)
  4. Alexander (was 6th)
  5. William (was 8th)
  6. Joshua (was 4th)
  7. Daniel (was 5th)
  8. Jayden (was 11th)
  9. Noah (was 15th)
  10. Anthony (was 7th)

Highlights: Isabella trumps Emma. Jayden, Noah and Mia make the top 10. Michael slips out of the top 2 for the first time since the 1950s.

Here’s more from the SSA’s news release:

This year’s winner for the biggest jump is Maliyah, which undoubtedly is related to the popularity of the First Family. Malia (the spelling used by the First Daughter), also is one of the top 10 fastest risers among girls names. Isla, the name of popular actress Isla Fisher (and wife of Sacha Baron Cohen — aka Borat, which thankfully has yet to make the list) was the second fastest riser among girls. On the boy’s side, Cullen had the biggest increase, likely attributable to the popular character Edward Cullen in the “Twilight” novels and movies. King came in as the number three top mover for boys, but more on Elvis later.

The girl’s name Marely, which interestingly had the third largest increase last year, had the biggest drop this year from number 334 to 851. Mylee had the second biggest drop; Miley (as in Cyrus) also dropped in popularity. In the wake of controversies surrounding Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay dropped from number 381 to 524. Brett, Jonas and Alvin are among the boy’s names with the largest decreases. With Brett, Social Security wonders if Americans are ready to retire the name (sorry Vikings’ fans, we mean Jets’ fans, um Packers’ fans). And despite the soaring popularity of singing trios — whether human brothers or the chipmunk variety — fewer people apparently are willing to name their sons Jonas or Alvin.

With 69 baby Baracks born in 2009, Barack continues to move up the list to number 1,993 from 2,424 in 2008, and 12,535 in 2007, but still lags well behind First Dog Bo at 782.

Many patterns of recent years continued. Religious names continue to be very popular, including the girl names Heaven at number 275 and Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backwards) at 34. Messiah was number 663 for boys. An extraordinary 3.7 percent of the Top 1000 boy names rhymed with the word “maiden” and names associated with cities, states, or countries were popular, particularly for girls.

Are you surprised that Isabella is the new #1 girl name? Were you expecting it?

Sources: SSA, Isabella Reigns as New Queen of Baby Names – Takes Top Spot on Social Security’s Most Popular Baby Names List – SSA

Image: Adapted from Flag of the United States (public domain)