Humanverse

Jose vs Josi

American parents have registered 596,732 Joses since 1880, against 1,059 Josis. Jose is still ahead, with 3,678 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jose against Josi, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jose Josi

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Jose has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2023, when Jose had 3,733 and Josi had 23.

Side by side

  Jose Josi
Total US births 596,7321,059
Most in one year 12,91636
Babies in 2025 3,67813
Estimated living today 518,0001,000
Median age today 3124
Peak year 20022002
Best rank 30th boys3,654th girls
Rank in 2025 95th7,885th
First recorded 18801959
Girls / boys 4,220 / 592,5121,059 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Joses alive today are over 31; half the Josis are over 24. That is 7 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Jose Josi
England and Wales 9673

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Jose and Josi.