Humanverse

Yoseph vs Yossi

American parents have registered 958 Yosephs since 1880, against 584 Yossis. But in 2025 it was Yossi that was commoner, 58 babies to 20.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Yoseph against Yossi, 1880 to 2025 0 15 30 45 60 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Yoseph Yossi

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

Of the 48 years in which either name was published, Yoseph for 39 years and Yossi for 9 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Yoseph Yossi
Total US births 958584
Most in one year 3758
Babies in 2025 2058
Estimated living today 940580
Median age today 197
Peak year 20052025
Best rank 2,846th boys2,363rd boys
Rank in 2025 4,857th2,363rd
First recorded 19751990
Girls / boys 0 / 9580 / 584

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 Yosephs alive today are over 19; half the Yossis are over 7. That is 12 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Yoseph Yossi
England and Wales 57169

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: Yoseph and Yossi.