Joss
About 691 American babies have been named Joss since 1977, most of them around 2020. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 8,910th. About 680 Josses are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 12.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Joss boys named Joss
Girls and boys called Joss
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 255 girls and 436 boys in all, and in 2021 the split was 7 to 19.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 13 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 691
- Estimated living today
- 680
- Median age today
- 12
- Peak year
- 2020
- Best rank
- 3,811th
- Rank in 2025
- 8,910th
- First recorded
- 1977
- Girls / boys
- 255 / 436
How old the living Josses are
born that year still alive today
Of the 691 babies given the name since 1977, about 680 are alive — 99 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2013 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
Verb usage evolved from the name of Joss Whedon, creator of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Josss
- Joss Whedon (born 1964)American director, screenwriter, and producer
- Joss Stone (born 1987)English singer, songwriter, and actress
- Joss Ackland (1928–2023)English actor
- Joss Christensen (born 1991)American freestyle skier, Olympian
People named Joss with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Joss is most common
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2020
The most popular boys’ names the year Joss peaked:
Joss elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Joss | 592 | 458th |
| France boys | Joss | 425 | 1,028th |
| England and Wales girls | Joss | 80 | 2,137th |
| Scotland boys | Joss | 63 | 246th |
| Ireland boys | Joss | 6 | 323rd |
| Northern Ireland boys | Joss | 6 | 280th |
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.
Related names
Joss 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.