Josefa

Where Josefa comes from

Josefa hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1630
    Josefa de Óbidos born
    Portuguese and Spanish artist
  2. 1881
    First appearance
    #830 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  3. 1890
    Peak, #548
    23 babies named Josefa — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1899
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #983.
  5. 1920
    Josefa Iloilo born
    President of Fiji from 2000 to 2009
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Josefa Iloilo · President of Fiji from 2000 to 2009, 1920–2011
  • Josefa de Óbidos · Portuguese and Spanish artist, 1630–1684
  • Josefa Idem · German-born Italian canoeist and politician, born 1964
  • Josefa Francisco · women's rights activist, 1954–2015
  • Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez · Mexican insurgent, 1768–1829

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.