Josh is the short form of Joshua, from the Hebrew Yehoshua, which means "the Lord is salvation". Joshua was Moses' successor who led the Israelites into Canaan, and the nickname became a given name in its own right when Joshua was a top 10 name in the 1980s and 1990s. On the birth certificate Josh ranked number 822 in 2000 and peaked at number 663 in 2004; it has since fallen to number 1703 in 2025.