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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
Yuzefa Ziuta
Alive in 2025
196,113
Newborns 2025
612
National rank
#67
Next name day
4 February
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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.

When Józef celebrates name day

Józef appears 41 times in the Polish name day calendar, 3 of them as a main name, the first on 4 February.

Next name day
4 February
Thursday in 2027
Next one in 102 days
Name days

The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.

Also celebrates

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 Józef

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

People with the name Józef 2019 → 2025
196,113 −55,629 since 2019
2020 246,895 −4,847
2021 234,613 −12,282
2022 222,884 −11,729
2023 213,147 −9,737
2024 204,623 −8,524
2025 196,113 −8,510

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.

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612 newborns with the name Józef in 2025
national rank #95 that year

Where parents choose Józef

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 Holy Cross, 50% and 44% below average respectively.

Chosen most
  • Masovian
    +46%
    1 in 357 babies
  • Pomeranian
    +24%
    1 in 421 babies
  • Greater Poland
    +17%
    1 in 447 babies
Chosen least
  • West Pomeranian
    −50%
    1 in 1,042 babies
  • Holy Cross
    −44%
    1 in 924 babies
  • Lubusz
    −40%
    1 in 871 babies

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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Search the register, or step through the ranking one place at a time.

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