Newborn Baby Name Joshua

His name is Joshua, Josh, Josue People everywhere will be calling out his name: Jah-shoo-uh, or even jah-shwuh or JAW-shwə (I think that’s how they say it down South!!)

It means the same as the word Yes-shu, which means “God is salvation.”

In the original Hebrew form, it is the same as the name Jehoshuah, which means “Jehovah is Salvation,” which means “Jesus is salvation,”  which means …WOW!!! He will have the same name as Jesus!  You can’t get more impressive than that!

God spoke to Joshua and gave us all words to live by and to remember: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee….” Joshua 1: 5 He is in some good company with the Baby Name Joshua.

And did I mention, Joshua is a boy’s name! And people LOVE it! It made the Baby Name List!  Close to the top of the Baby Name List, as a matter of fact!   It was the #6 most popular baby boy name in the United States in 2009!    It used to be more popular…from 2002 to 2006, it was ranked #3, then in 2007, it moved to #4 and now it is #6….but hey, that just makes it a little more unique!

Joshua has ranked in the top 5 most popular names since 1984… that's 15 years.  Lots of Joshuas in those 15 years. It was the same in the 80s and 90s, but waaaaay back in the 70s, it was all the way down at the 24th most popular name…. what in the world? 

In 2009, in the state of Florida, it was the 3rd most popular boys’ name.  In Alabama, it was 6th and in Alaska, it was all the way down at #18…..too cold for Joshua there!!

There are so many Joshua’s, they should form a Joshua Club!

Famous people with the name Joshua. There are 6 Joshua’s in the Bible, with the most famous being Moses’ sidekick… See, I TOLD you he was in good company!! And then there’s Joshua Bell, the violinist Joshua Lederberg, Nobel Prize in Science Joshua Reynolds, painter of kings Joshua Chamberlain, Civil war hero and Governor of Maine Josh Groban, country singer and Josh Hartnett, actor (and hunk!) Josh Holloway (actor on “Lost” and another hunk!) And have you ever seen The Guiding Light?

Good ol’ Josh is on there… dependable, smart, good guy Josh, and did I mention? ...he is a HUNK !!

3 hunks in a row…does that make Joshua the official Hunk Name?  Could be!!

Joshua is smart too… statistics say (ok, MY statistics say) that he is smart. Every Joshua that has ever been in my class at school have been very smart.  So I guess if you assume that other classes are parallel, then all the Joshuas are super smart!    And how many heros of romance novels everywhere are named Joshua?  “Joshua held her as her heaving bosom….”  Too many to count, and do you know WHY?  Because it is a hunky, oh so masculine name.  Girls LOVE IT!

Who else can say that he is related to Yucca Brevifolia?  He is!  OK, so it is not a baby name… it is a tree…the JOSHUA Tree.

It is a tree that grows only in the Mojave Desert in the United States, and its leaves are shaped like little swords.

Swords like the ones the Joshua in the Bible used to “fight the Battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho….”  Talk about unique baby names… how many babies do you know that have a tree named after them?

There are so many ways to write the name Joshua… if he gets bored with his new baby name, he can try these Josh, Yeshua, Josua, Jeshua, Iokua, Jesiah, Josu.

And if that doctor was wrong, and he ends up being a girl, call her Jocelin, or Joceline.  A girl baby name with all the same stuff applied.

So name your baby Joshua, Jose, or Jesiah.  It is a popular name, not necessarily a unique name, but a good strong name with a lot of history and famous people behind it.