BabyNameScore

Name profile

Jose

masculine

93First-name usabilityHighly workable
Evidence coverageHigh

This reflects the first name on its own. The full-name report scores the complete combination separately.

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Spanish/Portuguese form of the Hebrew biblical name Joseph

Why it works

  • English speakers will almost certainly pronounce it correctly on the first try
  • spelling is short and predictable — rarely needs repeating

What to know

pronunciation varies somewhat by language — see "How it travels" for the specifics

Popularity

Familiar — #95 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Meaning and origin

Jose means "God will add" / "Jehovah increases" (shared with Joseph).

Jose was the most popular boys' name in Spain for the first half of the 20th century, and remains one of the defining given names of the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world. In the US, Jose is closely tied to Hispanic and Latino identity: 2020 Census-sourced data cited by name-statistics aggregators shows around 96% of people bearing the name Jose reporting Hispanic origin.

Documented origin: Spanish/Portuguese form of the Hebrew biblical name Joseph

VerifiedDirectly documented by an independent source, with no competing account on file.

How it travels

English and Turkish are shown by default; German is included when it adds a meaningfully different reading.

Englishho-SEH — Spanish (Castilian IPA: [xo.ˈse]; Latin American Spanish similar with softer /h/-like initial)researched pronunciation
TurkishEnglish reading conventions often soften or drop a trailing "-e"; Turkish is pronounced letter-by-letter, so Turkish speakers are likely to voice that final syllable clearly where English speakers may not.deterministic phonetic analysis
GermanEnglish reading conventions often soften or drop a trailing "-e"; German is pronounced letter-by-letter, so German speakers are likely to voice that final syllable clearly where English speakers may not.deterministic phonetic analysis

Spelling stability: high — based on letter-pattern analysis, not a documented linguistic fact.

Also documented

Portuguese: [ʒu.ˈzɛ]

English (US, anglicized): /hoʊˈzeɪ/ or anglicized "JOH-zay"

Popularity without panic

Familiar — #95 in the latest U.S. ranking.

Familiar enough to feel established, distinctive enough to stand out.

Full-name check

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Real-world considerations

  • Familiar — #95 in the latest U.S. ranking.
  • Spelling note: José (accented form).
  • Shares Joseph's underlying Hebrew root yasaf ('to add, increase'); like Joseph, biblical scholarship notes the Genesis text itself plays on two related but distinct Hebrew verbs (yasaf 'to add' and asaf 'to gather/take away') in explaining the name, so the 'increase' gloss, while standard, is a simplification of a etymology the Bible itself treats as layered.
Explore alternatives
Joseph

Documented as a related name or variant form.

Josefina/Josephine (feminine form)

Documented as a related name or variant form.

Josue

Documented as a related name or variant form.