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First name · Masculine

Józef

Long out of fashion, it's climbing back: now inside Poland's top 100 names for boys, with more born last year than in years past. At root a Hebrew name meaning roughly "God will add," or increase.

Józef Pronunciation

Józef is pronounced YOO-zef (/ˈjuzɛf/).

Related names
Iosif Józefa
Alive in 2025
196,113
Newborns 2025
612
National rank
#67
Meaning & Origin

What Józef means

Where Józef comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.

Józef comes from the Hebrew Yosef, and its sense is plain: God will add, God will increase. In the book of Genesis, Rachel gives the name to her son with the wish that the Lord add to her another child. The meaning traveled with the name into Greek and Latin, and from there into Polish, where the boy became Józef while the variant Iosif kept the older Eastern shape.

Poland took the name and made it common. Every 19 March the calendar marks imieniny for Józef, the feast of Saint Joseph, and a class register in any Polish school once held several of them. Józef Piłsudski carried it into the twentieth century and the history books.

The name has a sister. Józefa is the feminine form, less usual now, though it shares the same Hebrew root and the same promise of increase. A boy named Józef and a girl named Józefa answer to one old word: God will add.

How many

How many people are named Józef

1 in 109 men in Poland is named Józef. 196,113 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #67 among male names.

Living Józefs · 2019 → 2025
196,113 -55,629 since 2019
-4,847 2020
-12,282 2021
-11,729 2022
-9,737 2023
-8,524 2024
-8,510 2025
Trend

Józef's popularity over time

612 boys were given the name in 2025, ranking #95 among newborns. It has been climbing since 2006. Still the #67 name among living men, even as it slips to #95 among newborns.

612 newborn Józefs in 2025
national rank #95 that year
hover a bar to explore →
Regions

Where Józef is most popular

Józef is most popular in Masovian, 46% above the national average (993 boys born 2019–2025), followed by Pomeranian (+24%) and Greater Poland (+17%). It is least common in West Pomeranian and Świętokrzyskie, 50% and 44% below average respectively.

More common than average Less common than average
Middle name

Józef as a middle name

Józef is a first name for 196,113 men in Poland and a middle name for another 381,053, a 34/66 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 6th, between Paweł (399,071) and Krzysztof (330,379).

As a first name
196,113
As a middle name
381,053
first name · 34% middle name · 66%
Middle-name ranking · men

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