Joshua (English)

Where does "Joshua" come from?

The English name Joshua comes from Biblical Hebrew 'Yehoshúa'', which may have been formed from 'Hoshéa'' with the divine name YHWH added, giving a sense of "Yahweh is salvation" and linking it to the verb 'hoshía'', "to save"[1]. A closely related name, 'Yēšū́ʿ' in Aramaic and 'Yeshúa'' in Hebrew, is the source of the Greek 'Ἰησοῦς' and the Latin 'Iēsūs', which is why Joshua is a direct cognate equivalent of Jesus[1]. The Greek Septuagint and the New Testament rendered both Hebrew names into Koine Greek as 'Iēsoûs', so the two names were treated as the same word in that tradition[1]. The name was carried by the biblical Joshua, Moses' successor as Judge of Israel, and it later became a male given name in English.

Open questions

• The derivation of 'Yehoshúa'' from 'Hoshéa'' with the addition of YHWH is only proposed with the word 'perhaps', so the meaning "Yahweh is salvation" is a reconstruction rather than a securely documented origin. [1]
• The exact route by which the Hebrew and Aramaic forms passed into Greek and Latin is described only in general terms, and the source does not give dates for these stages. [1]

Full etymology tree

• Joshua (English), 'The sixth book of the Old Testament of the Bible, and a book of the Tanakh.'
  • inherited יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshúa') (Biblical Hebrew)
    • compound הושע (Hoshéa') (Hebrew), 'a male given name, Hoshea, equivalent to English Hosea'
    • compound יהוה (YHWH) (Hebrew), 'Tetragrammaton (the word in four Hebrew letters יהוה (in transliteration as YHWH or JHVH) used as the ineffable name of God in the Hebrew Bible, variously rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah)'

Cognates and doublets

• Ἰησοῦς (Ancient Greek)
• Iesus (Latin)

Sources

1. Joshua (English) - Wiktionary

Updated October 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris