Jozef
A Hebrew masculine name derived from Joseph, meaning "he will add".
Name Census estimates that about 1,080 living Americans carry the first name Jozef. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jozef today is around 24 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jozef births was 2005 (57 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jozef. 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 Jozef with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.1K
~ 1 in 317,365 Americans
Peak year
2005
57 babies that year
Average age
24
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,314
Tracked since 1914
Census
Jozef in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,765 people with the first name Jozef, which placed it at #4,800 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
#4,800
National first-name rank
People counted
3.8K
3,765 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
91.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jozef
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jozef is White at 91.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.5%) and Two or More Races (1.4%). 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 Jozef 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 Jozef at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White91.2% · 3,435
- Hispanic or Latino5.5% · 208
- Two or more races1.4% · 54
- Black or African American1.0% · 39
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.7% · 26
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.1% · 3
Popularity
Jozef: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jozef from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 348 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jozef 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 Jozef during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jozefs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 6 states and territories. California, Michigan, New York recorded the most babies named Jozef, while Florida, Texas, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 30 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jozef
The name Jozef is derived from the Hebrew name Yosef, which means "he will add" or "he will increase." It is a variant spelling of the more common English name Joseph. The name has its origins in the biblical figure Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel, whose story is recounted in the Book of Genesis.
Jozef is the Slovak, Czech, and Hungarian form of the name. It has been in use in these Central European regions since the Middle Ages, when Christianity spread throughout the area. The name was likely adopted from the Latin form Ioseph, which was used in the Vulgate Bible, the Latin translation of the Bible that was widely circulated in medieval Europe.
In the Byzantine Empire, the name was rendered as Iosif or Ioseph in Greek, and this form influenced the Slavic and Hungarian versions of the name. The spelling Jozef is closely related to the Polish form Józef and the Croatian form Josip.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Jozef can be found in the Codex Judaeorum, a medieval legal document from the Kingdom of Hungary, which mentions a man named Jozef de Villa Cruciferorum in 1349.
Throughout history, there have been several notable individuals named Jozef or a variant spelling:
1. Jozef Košický (c. 1500-1566), a Slovak humanist writer and theologian who translated the Bible into Slovak.
2. Jozef Maximilián Petzval (1807-1891), a Hungarian mathematician and inventor who designed the Petzval lens for photography.
3. Jozef Ďurček (1835-1925), a Slovak writer and Catholic priest who made significant contributions to Slovak literature.
4. Jozef Kroner (1924-1998), a Slovak composer and educator who wrote numerous works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments.
5. Jozef Kabaň (born 1973), a Slovak football player who represented the Slovak national team and played professionally in several European leagues.
While the name Jozef has its roots in ancient Hebrew and biblical tradition, it has been widely used in Central and Eastern Europe for centuries, with numerous notable bearers across various fields and eras.
People
Jozef + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jozef as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with J
Other first names starting with J with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Jozef: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jozef?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,080 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jozef 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 317,365 US residents.
Is Jozef a common name?
We classify Jozef as "Rare". It ranks above 90.6% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,184 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jozef most popular?
The single biggest year for Jozef was 2005, when 57 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jozef is about 24 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jozef in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,765 people with the name Jozef, or 1.25 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #4,800 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 Jozef 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 Jozef?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jozef appears almost entirely male. Of the 3,764 people counted with this name, 99.8% 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 Jozef?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jozef is White at 91.2%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.5%) and Two or More Races (1.4%). 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 Jozef most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jozef in the 2020 Census, accounting for 91.2% (3,435 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 Jozef in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jozef a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jozef 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 Jozef still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jozef 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 Jozef 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 have the name Jozef?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.