Joshua

At the 2020 census, 3,344 Americans bore the surname Joshua — 9,339th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 89,400.

By the numbers

People: 3,344
Rank: 9,339th
How common: 1 in 89,400
Per 100,000: 1.1

Where the name comes from

From Biblical Hebrew יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, perhaps from הוֹשֵׁעַ with addition of יהוה (“Yahweh”), thus meaning "Yahweh is salvation". See הוֹשִׁיעַ (“to save”). By cognate a direct equivalent to Jesus via Latin Iēsūs and Ancient Greek Ἰησοῦς from Aramaic יֵשׁוּע, akin to Hebrew יֵשׁוּעַ, a variant of Yehoshúa<nowiki>'</nowiki>.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Joshua described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Black, not Hispanic 60.5%
White, not Hispanic 13.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 12.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.9%
Hispanic or Latino 5.0%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 3.1%

Notable people called Joshua

Anthony Joshua (born 1989)British boxer
T. B. Joshua (1963–2021)Nigerian Christian leader and televangelist
Hirondina Joshua (born 1987)Mozambican poet

People named Joshua with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Joshua

Also a first name

Joshua has been given to 1,253,882 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1989. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.