Josephine

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Josephine is a given name, most frequently recorded in the Philippines, where it is the 41st most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and French, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: From Empress Josephine (1763–1814), wife of Napoleon; her real name was Josepha.

rarermore common
  • SESweden1 in 529◐
  • PHPhilippines1 in 612
  • DKDenmark1 in 624

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈316K ●

across 10 countries

5 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
464 ●

2.1M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 529 ◐

Sweden

Spellings & scripts●

JosephineLatin · English●1.8M records
ג'וזפיןHebrew · Hebrew●1.5K records
ᲯოზეფინაGeorgian · Georgian●1 records
জোসেফিনBengali · Bangla●1 records
조세핀Hangul · Korean●0 records

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

From Empress Josephine (1763–1814), wife of Napoleon; her real name was Josepha.

Sources 1

  • Irish first names

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Josephine is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PH Philippines#41273,274235K rec.——Josephine142
GB United Kingdom#261129,920103K rec.—12Josephine204
US United States#320123,7911.4M rec.1 in 2.7K124KJosephine464
FR France#26690,05097K rec.1 in 75390KJosephine284
AU Australia#32259,38251K rec.—78Josephine212
ES Spain—36,842△4.6K rec.1 in 1.4K40KJosephine77
CA Canada#38032,48128K rec.—38Josephine171
NG Nigeria#28725,17035K rec.——Josephine105
DE Germany#63221,50118K rec.—16Josephine183
BR Brazil—19,905△2.9K rec.1 in 11K28KJosephine49
SE Sweden#57919,274△3K rec.1 in 52919KJosephine91
IT Italy#55011,13812K rec.—21Josephine77

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English1.8M61%
  • French468K16%
  • Swahili187K6%
  • Spanish97K3%
  • 61K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English1,829,41261%
French468,16416%
Swahili186,5296%
Spanish97,4693%
61,1522%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Josephine is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate given name67K records spelled Josephine4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy

    Also written Joséphine, Joseph-Ine, Josêphine

  • Indonesian given name19K records spelled Josephine4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Josephine, Joséphine

  • Polish given name13K records spelled Josephine38 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Czechia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Czech

    Also written Джозефина, Иозефина, Josefine, Josefin, Жозефин

  • French (Côte d’Ivoire) given name6.1K records spelled Josephine2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Côte d’Ivoire

    Also written Joséphine

  • Thai given name3.4K records spelled Josephine8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Philippines, Sweden

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written Josefine, โจเซฟิน, โจเซฟีน, Joséphine

  • Greek given name2.3K records spelled Josephine4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa

    Also written Joséphine, Josèphine, Ζοζεφιν

71 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Josephine is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • From French Joséphine, a feminine equivalent of Joseph formed with the diminutive suffix -ine. It is now widely used in the English-speaking world. Short form: Jo. Pet form: Josie.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In French, Forme féminine de Joseph; d'origine hébraïque, « Dieu ajoute ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, Feminine form of Joseph; Hebrew

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In Hebrew, Feminine Form Of Joseph

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • English form of JOSÉPHINE , now widely adopted in the English-speaking world. Cognates: Irish Gaelic: Seosaimhín. Italian: Giuseppina. Short form: English: Jo. Pet forms: English: Josie, Josette, FIFI , POSY .

    as a word

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

02.5K5K7.5K10K1900195020008.7K · 1918

Show as table
Josephine in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
1880544
1881563
1882638
1883697
1884800
1885783
1886844
1887815
18881,001
18891,047
18901,118
18911,031
18921,210
18931,178
18941,256
18951,334
18961,256
18971,267
18981,425
18991,388
19001,743
19011,434
19021,565
19031,587
19041,701
19051,894
19061,900
19072,156
19082,389
19092,416
19102,801
19113,011
19123,980
19134,822
19145,896
19157,606
19168,127
19178,326
19188,682
19198,104
19208,093
19218,135
19227,864
19237,560
19247,274
19256,810
19266,410
19276,108
19285,671
19295,298
19304,988
19314,497
19324,095
19333,569
19343,742
19353,262
19363,141
19372,942
19382,978
19392,837
19402,744
19412,726
19422,748
19432,664
19442,324
19452,146
19462,228
19472,351
19482,230
19492,163
19502,093
19511,966
19521,862
19531,799
19541,719
19551,595
19561,485
19571,442
19581,274
19591,177
19601,157
19611,204
19621,103
19631,054
1964962
1965863
1966838
1967744
1968693
1969699
1970677
1971603
1972580
1973535
1974536
1975456
1976431
1977442
1978457
1979437
1980502
1981477
1982491
1983480
1984437
1985423
1986456
1987436
1988503
1989527
1990579
1991607
1992591
1993596
1994648
1995700
1996725
1997784
1998840
1999989
20001,116
20011,153
20021,198
20031,257
20041,337
20051,490
20061,548
20071,562
20081,635
20091,628
20101,677
20111,730
20121,957
20132,012
20142,286
20152,505
20162,797
20172,823
20183,050
20193,123
20203,057
20213,391
20223,266
20233,371
20243,765
20254,126

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1700180019002000Joséphine de Beauharnais, b. 1763Josephine of Leuchtenberg, b. 1807Clara Schumann, b. 1819Clara Zetkin, b. 1857Estée Lauder, b. 1906Joséphine Baker, b. 1906Josephine Chaplin, b. 1949Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland, b. 1982Anya Taylor-Joy, b. 1996Josephine Langford, b. 1997

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 107 sources across 61 countries.

Official registers attesting Josephine
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020124K#459
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)202490K#2,784
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—5.4K#585
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—5.4K#131
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20254.1K—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20202.7K—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—1.9K#1,141
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—683#1,899
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024)2024674#120
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2025575—
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—540#2,039
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—525#4,416

Reference works 3

  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,462 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Josephine?
We estimate roughly 316 thousand people bear Josephine (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Josephine have the most bearers?
Josephine is most frequently recorded in the Philippines, where it is most often spelled josephine.
Where is Josephine most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Josephine is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 529 people — even though Philippines holds more of our records for it.
How common is Josephine compared with other names?
In the Philippines, Josephine is the 41st most common given name of 462,140 given names recorded there.
Is Josephine a male or female name?
Josephine is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Josephine mean?
Recorded meaning: From Empress Josephine (1763–1814), wife of Napoleon; her real name was Josepha.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/josephine

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Josephine” — the 41st most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Josephine parses inside a full name →