Iosif
The Russian form of the Hebrew Yosef, "he will add". In Poland it stays foreign: only around 200 people carry it, and most have never met another, since the same root usually turns up as Józef.
Iosif Pronunciation
Iosif is pronounced YO-sheef (/ˈjɔɕif/).
What Iosif means
Where Iosif comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Iosif reaches Polish through Russian, and behind both stands the Hebrew Yosef. The sense was plain. He will add. In the book of Genesis, Rachel names her son Yosef and asks God to give her another child, and the verb sits inside the name itself.
Russian took the name as Iosif and kept it in use among poets and clergy. Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel poet exiled from Leningrad, was Iosif Aleksandrovich on his papers. He won the prize in 1987.
Polish trims the same root down to Józef, with Józefa for a daughter. On a school register or an official form at the urząd, that is the shape the name takes. Its name-day falls on the nineteenth of March, when Poland celebrates every Józef at once. The meaning stays where it began: niech Bóg pomnoży, may God add more.
How many people are named Iosif
1 in 103122 men in Poland is named Iosif. 207 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2183 among male names.
Iosif's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Iosif as a middle name
Iosif is a first name for 207 men in Poland and a middle name for another 15, a 93/7 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 2406th, between Ihor (15) and Isidoro (15).
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#2404 Iair15
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#2405 Ihor15
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#2406 Iosif15
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#2407 Isidoro15
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#2408 Jean Marie15