Jocelyn
Jocelyn reached its high-water mark in 2007 at number 50, and has been recorded 113,412 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 393rd. About 110,000 Jocelyns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 21.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Jocelyn boys named Jocelyn
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 113,412
- Estimated living today
- 110,000
- Median age today
- 21
- Peak year
- 2007
- Best rank
- 50th
- Rank in 2025
- 393rd
- First recorded
- 1900
- Girls / boys
- 113,061 / 351
How old the living Jocelyns are
born that year still alive today
Of the 113,412 babies given the name since 1900, about 110,000 are alive — 97 in every hundred. Roughly 40,000 of them are children and 3,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2004 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Germanic languages
Jocelyn is currently popular among U.S. Hispanics, and in the Philippines, by folk etymology explained as a feminine diminutive form of José (Joseph).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Jocelyns
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943)British astrophysicist
- Jocelyn Angloma (born 1965)French football player and manager
- Jocelyn Pook (born 1960)Composer, pianist
- Jocelyn Quivrin (1979–2009)French actor
- Jocelyn Brando (1919–2005)American actress
- Jocelyn Rae (born 1991)British tennis player
- Jocelyn Gourvennec (born 1972)French football manager
- Jocelyn Delecour (born 1935)French athlete
People named Jocelyn with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Jocelyn is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Jocelyn is most concentrated in Nevada (2.7×), California (2.4×), Arizona (2.0×), Texas (1.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2007
The most popular girls’ names the year Jocelyn peaked:
Jocelyn elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Jocelyn | 12,600 | 123rd |
| England and Wales girls | Jocelyn | 1,097 | 494th |
| New Zealand girls | Jocelyn | 557 | 69th |
| Scotland girls | Jocelyn | 199 | 296th |
| Ireland girls | Jocelyn | 81 | 326th |
| England and Wales boys | Jocelyn | 50 | 1,664th |
| France girls | Jocelyn | 20 | 1,605th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Jocelyn among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Jocelyn | 13 | 23 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Jocelyn lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 373 women called Jocelyn were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmas, Las | Jocelyn | 40 | 0.068 | 1,364 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Jocelyn | 34 | 0.061 | 1,316 |
| Málaga | Jocelyn | 27 | 0.029 | 1,642 |
| Madrid | Jocelyn | 99 | 0.027 | 1,771 |
| Barcelona | Jocelyn | 75 | 0.025 | 1,921 |
| Balears, Illes | Jocelyn | 14 | 0.022 | 2,285 |
Listed in 9 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 43 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Jocelyn against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.