Józefina
After a quiet start to the century it's climbing fast, with more newborn girls given it last year than in any year before, yet it stays rare enough that most Poles have never met one. Latin at root, from a word meaning "he will add".
Józefina Pronunciation
Józefina is pronounced yoo-ze-FEE-nah (/juzɛˈfina/).
What Józefina means
Where Józefina comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Józefina reached Polish through Latin, the feminine of Josephus, which holds the older Hebrew name Yosef. The meaning fixed to that root is "he will add," in Polish bóg przydał, the sense of a child who extends a family line. The masculine Józef stands beside it. The French variant Josephine traveled the same road under Napoleon's empire, and the same source gave Italian Giuseppe and English Joseph.
Polish speakers trimmed the formal name down to Ziuta, a diminutive used at home and among friends. The variant Józefa runs closer to the plain Latin shape, and it sounds more rural. A girl entered in a school register as Józefina might be Ziuta by October, the long name saved for the imieniny card.
Say the short one once. It sticks.
The name never needed grandeur to last. It sat on official forms at the urząd across generations, and it kept its Latin bones and its meaning of one more added to the household, bóg przydał.
When Józefina celebrates name day
Józefina appears 3 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 8 February.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Józefina
1 in 22726 women in Poland is named Józefina. 992 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #968 among female names.
Józefina's popularity over time
78 girls were given the name in 2025, ranking #274 among newborns. It is making a comeback after a low in 2003.
Where parents choose Józefina
Józefina is most popular in Masovian, 100% above the national average (141 girls born 2019–2025), followed by Pomeranian (+54%) and Greater Poland (+36%). It is least common in West Pomeranian and Holy Cross, 58% and 55% below average respectively.
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Masovian
+100%1 in 2,513 babies
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Pomeranian
+54%1 in 3,274 babies
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Greater Poland
+36%1 in 3,711 babies
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West Pomeranian
−58%1 in 12,061 babies
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Holy Cross
−55%1 in 11,087 babies
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Subcarpathian
−50%1 in 10,047 babies
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Masovian+100% 141 born1 in 2,513 babies+100%
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Pomeranian+54% 45 born1 in 3,274 babies+54%
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Greater Poland+36% 58 born1 in 3,711 babies+36%
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Lubusz+1% 10 born1 in 4,966 babies+1%
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Kuyavian-Pomeranian−3% 21 born1 in 5,209 babies−3%
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Podlaskie−16% 11 born1 in 5,981 babies−16%
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Silesian−27% 33 born1 in 6,896 babies−27%
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Łódź−28% 18 born1 in 7,040 babies−28%
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Warmian-Masurian−30% 10 born1 in 7,179 babies−30%
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Lesser Poland−38% 28 born1 in 8,104 babies−38%
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Lower Silesian−39% 19 born1 in 8,270 babies−39%
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Lublin−46% 11 born1 in 9,334 babies−46%
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Subcarpathian−50% 12 born1 in 10,047 babies−50%
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Holy Cross−55% 5 born1 in 11,087 babies−55%
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West Pomeranian−58% 7 born1 in 12,061 babies−58%
Józefina as a middle name
Józefina is a first name for 992 women in Poland and a middle name for another 3,256, a 23/77 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 165th, between Kaja (3,347) and Marie (3,239).
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#163 Alfreda3,432
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#164 Kaja3,347
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#165 Józefina3,256
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#166 Marie3,239
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#167 Otylia3,219