Yosif
An Arabic form of the Hebrew masculine name Joseph, meaning "he will add".
Name Census estimates that about 37 living Americans carry the first name Yosif. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Yosif today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Yosif births was 2011 (7 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Yosif. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Yosif with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Yosif. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
37
~ 1 in 9,263,631 Americans
Peak year
2011
7 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2016 SSA rank
#10,705
Tracked since 2011
Census
Yosif in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 165 people with the first name Yosif, which placed it at #43,061 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#43,061
National first-name rank
People counted
165
165 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
80.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Yosif
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yosif is White at 80.6%. The next largest groups are Black (6.1%) and Two or More Races (5.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Yosif described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Yosif at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White80.6% · 133
- Black or African American6.1% · 10
- Two or more races5.5% · 9
- Hispanic or Latino3.6% · 6
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.6% · 6
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 1
Popularity
Yosif: popularity over time
Babies born per year
Decades
Yosif by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Yosif during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010s | 37 | 0 | 37 |
Origin
Meaning and history of Yosif
The name Yosif is derived from the Hebrew name Yosef, which means "he will add" or "he will increase". It is the name of an important biblical figure, Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel. The name has its origins in the ancient Near East and is found in the Book of Genesis.
Joseph, whose name is Yosif in Arabic and other Semitic languages, was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and played a pivotal role in the narrative of the Israelites' migration to Egypt. He was sold into slavery by his brothers but later rose to become the vizier of Egypt, second only to the pharaoh himself.
The name Yosif gained widespread popularity among Jews, Christians, and Muslims due to its biblical and Quranic significance. One of the earliest recorded examples of the name is Joseph, the foster father of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
In the Islamic tradition, Yusuf (the Arabic form of the name) is revered as a prophet, and an entire chapter in the Quran is dedicated to his story. This further solidified the name's prominence in the Muslim world.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Yosif or its variations. One of the most famous was Yosef ben Matityahu, better known as Flavius Josephus (37-100 CE), a Jewish historian whose works provided valuable insights into the Jewish-Roman wars and the history of ancient Judea.
Another notable figure was Yusuf ibn Tashfin (1009-1106 CE), the Almoravid ruler who established a powerful Islamic empire in North Africa and parts of Spain. He played a crucial role in the Reconquista period of the Iberian Peninsula.
In the realm of literature, Yusuf Khass Hajib (11th century CE) was a renowned poet and author of the Kutadgu Bilig, a revered work of Turkic literature that explored themes of ethics, governance, and wisdom.
A more recent example is Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens (born 1948), a British singer-songwriter and convert to Islam, who has been an influential figure in the Muslim community and a proponent of peace and humanitarian causes.
Yosif has also been a popular name among Eastern European and Slavic populations, particularly in Russia, where it has been rendered as Iosif or Osip.
People
Yosif + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Yosif as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with Y
Other first names starting with Y with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Yosif: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Yosif?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 37 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Yosif going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 9,263,631 US residents.
Is Yosif a common name?
We classify Yosif as "Very Rare". It ranks above 49.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 37 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Yosif most popular?
The single biggest year for Yosif was 2011, when 7 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Yosif is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Yosif in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 165 people with the name Yosif, or 0.05 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #43,061 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Yosif in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Yosif?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Yosif appears almost entirely male. Of the 167 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Yosif?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Yosif is White at 80.6%. The next largest groups are Black (6.1%) and Two or More Races (5.5%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Yosif most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Yosif in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.6% (133 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Yosif in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Yosif a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Yosif in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Yosif still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Yosif in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Yosif can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Yosif?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.