Josefina

Where Josefina comes from

Josefina 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. 1887
    First appearance
    #1,036 among girls, 6 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1903
    Josefina Plá born
    Paraguayan sculptor, ceramist, dramatist, poet, and historian
  3. 1930
    Peak, #468
    205 babies named Josefina — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1936
    Josefina Molina born
    Spanish film director
  5. 1936
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #679.
In the dictionary

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

Namesakes
  • Josefina Plá · Paraguayan sculptor, ceramist, dramatist, poet, and historian, 1903–1999
  • Josefina Molina · Spanish film director, 1936–2026
  • Josefina Vázquez Mota · Mexican politician, born 1961
  • Josefina de Latorre · Spanish actor, singer, novelist, poet, 1907–2002
  • Josefina Castellví · Spanish women scientist, biologist, oceanographer and writer, 1935–2026

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.