Yoav
A Hebrew name meaning "Yahweh is my father". Fewer than 400 men in Poland carry it, all of them boys and men, and it has fallen out of use since a small run of births in the 2000s: most Poles have never met one.
Yoav Pronunciation
What Yoav means
Where Yoav comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Yoav is a Hebrew name built from two pieces: the divine name Yahweh and the word for father. Read together they make a claim, "Yahweh is my father," or in Polish, bóg jest moim ojcem. The name speaks about God rather than the child who carries it.
Its first bearer stands in the Hebrew Bible. Yoav, son of Zeruiah, commanded King David's army and runs through the books of Samuel as a shrewd and ruthless general. Through him the name stayed alive in Jewish families, which is why it still reads as Jewish.
Yoav keeps no Polish diminutives and no softened variants. It is short. In a Warszawa school register it would sit whole, four letters, with no nickname trailing after it. A teacher reading the list meets the full name each time, and under it the old sentence: Yahweh is my father.
How many people are named Yoav
1 in 56322 men in Poland is named Yoav. 379 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1528 among male names.
Yoav's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Yoav as a middle name
Yoav is a first name for 379 men in Poland and a middle name for another 8, a 98/2 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 3723rd, between Yi̇ǧi̇t (8) and Yoon (8).
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#3721 Yehezkel8
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#3722 Yi̇ǧi̇t8
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#3723 Yoav8
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#3724 Yoon8
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#3725 Yoram8