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Joseangel vs Josiah

American parents have registered 149,420 Josiahs since 1880, against 1,235 Joseangels. Josiah is still ahead, with 5,522 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Joseangel against Josiah, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Joseangel Josiah

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

Josiah 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 1972, when Joseangel had 5 and Josiah had 43.

Side by side

  Joseangel Josiah
Total US births 1,235149,420
Most in one year 547,092
Babies in 2025 155,522
Estimated living today 1,200146,000
Median age today 1811
Peak year 20092017
Best rank 2,381st boys51st boys
Rank in 2025 5,861st54th
First recorded 19721880
Girls / boys 0 / 1,235462 / 148,958

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 Joseangels alive today are over 18; half the Josiahs are over 11. That is 7 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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