It's the golden age of 'Josh'

Joshes are having a moment.

As it stands, there’s a nonzero chance that the presidential election could feature a matchup of Joshes as both Republican and Democratic Joshes rise within their parties. As the NFL season kicks off, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is looking to repeat as the league’s MVP award winner — and finally lead his team to the Super Bowl. Josh wine, meanwhile, is a top seller. And “Weapons,” a horror film starring actor Josh Brolin, topped the box office charts last week.

Three of the nation’s 50 governor’s mansions are currently occupied by Jewish men named Josh — and while Josh trails only Mike as the most common gubernatorial name, the Joshes could soon be joined by namesakes in Wisconsin and Guam, bolting into the lead.

What’s more, these Joshes have bonded over their shared Old Testament names.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green told NBC News that he, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein have communicated in a group chat for Joshes only.

“It might have been called ‘Three Joshes,’” Green said. “I’m not exactly sure. It certainly was pinned in my phone, and it’s a fun thing. Plus, we get together periodically at the National Governors Association meetings or the Democratic Governors Association gatherings. So it’s quite cool. And I really like those guys.”

A source familiar with the group chat, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the off-the-record Josh deliberations, said the text thread “consists of a lot of Joshin’ around.”

On a more serious note, Joshes who spoke with NBC News said they too have noticed their name come of age, signaling a greater shift in society — away from boomer Bobs and Dougs, and toward a younger generation of Gen Xers and millennials who, after many years waiting behind older generations, are finally coming to power.

“It’s only been the last couple of years where I’ve seen folks with my name and in positions that I admire and envy,” Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif., said.

Harder, who was born in 1986 and first won elected office in 2018, said the ascendency of Joshes signals “the generational change is finally happening.”

“A lot of folks are frustrated with the old guard and the boomer generation, and it doesn’t necessarily feel like they have passed on the baton,” Harder said, adding: “Ultimately, people want leadership that reflects their experiences. And I think it’s great that folks named Josh are one leading sign of that change finally coming.”

The stats show how rapidly this shift is occurring. Before the three current Josh governors were elected — all since 2022 — no Josh had served as governor since 1895, according to data from the National Governors Association. In Congress, where five Joshes currently serve, only about two dozen congressmen or senators were named Josh prior to 2017.

While there were famous American Joshes born generations ago, including famed Negro Leagues star Josh Gibson, the name did not explode in popularity until the second part of the 20th century. The percentage of boys named Josh or Joshua peaked in 1985 at 1.13% of all births, according to an NBC News analysis of Social Security Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Laura Wattenberg, the founder of Namerology.com, said Josh was at the forefront of a shift in American naming from New Testament names like Mary, John and Joseph to Old Testament names like Joshua, Noah and Benjamin. In the Old Testament, Joshua was Moses’ No. 2 and eventually succeeded him, leading the Israelites into the promised land.

“The Johns and Jameses and Marys held sway in English baby-naming for hundreds and hundreds of years. Then in the middle of the 20th century in the United States, something amazing happened, which is collectively, Old Testament names started to outpace New Testament names,” she said.

Biblical names now had crossover appeal, with Jewish families able to participate in the trend and leading the way on names like Josh.

Joshua consistently ranked among the top 10 baby boy names from 1979 until 2009, according to the Social Security Administration. And even now, it’s still in the top 100, ranking 57th in 2024.

“Josh was a rare name when I was born in 1970,” Green said, noting that his father is Jewish and mother is Christian and they decided to name him from the Old Testament. “Someone read her fortune and told her that I was going to end up challenging major institutions once I became a man, and so they named me Josh because of the Old Testament passage, which was kind of interesting given where I ended up landing.”

Multiple Joshes who spoke to NBC News pointed to Brolin, born in 1968, as the first famous Josh they recalled. But the Josh era truly began in earnest in 1999, when Josh Hamilton and Josh Beckett went No. 1 and No. 2 in that year’s Major League Baseball draft; a third, Josh Girdley, was taken sixth overall. That same year, Bradley Whitford starred as Josh Lyman in the new hit TV drama “The West Wing.”

Josh Earnest, who served in the real-life West Wing as President Barack Obama’s press secretary, recalled Stephen Colbert joking that he had the perfect first and last name for the job because it “literally means, ‘Just kidding, but seriously.’”

Earnest was in his late 20s when Beckett, a star pitcher for the Florida Marlins, pitched a complete game shutout against the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the 2003 World Series to clinch the title for the fish and win series MVP in the process. But it was another baseball player Earnest had looked up to as a kid who shared his name: Gibson.

“And as somebody who played baseball as a kid and was sort of looking for people to look up to, I definitely was aware of him,” he said.

Now, as the first wave of new-era Joshes reaches their 40s and 50s, a handful of presidential prospects have emerged. On the left, there’s Pennsylvania’s Shapiro. On the right, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is garnering some chatter. Even Green has suggested openness to a bid. (For the record, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said he has “no immediate plans to run for president.”)

“It’d be great,” Earnest said of a Josh presidency. “I wouldn’t be able to vote for all of them. I probably wouldn’t want to vote for all of them. But perhaps that just shows the range of the name.”

Green said of all the possible presidential matchups between two people with the same first name, the most likely scenario is Josh vs. Josh.

“I’m almost going to guarantee that if we get two of the same guys running with the same name, it’s going to be Joshes,” Green said. “It seems a little more likely it’s going to be my dear brother Shapiro than me. But as I shared with you, anything is possible.”

“I will tell you there will be a Josh in the White House someday,” he added. “And I’ll be proud of whoever that is.”

In Shapiro’s home state, a fellow elected Josh has taken notice of the explosion in popularity of his name — and the camaraderie that’s come with it. State Rep. Josh Kail, a Republican, said he was keenly aware as a kid that “there were no adults named Josh.”

“Shapiro is the oldest Josh I know,” Kail said. “But there’s tons of us.”

It dawned on him roughly a decade ago that things were changing when he was invited to a Facebook group dubbed “Council of Josh.” He did not ultimately join, but he did take notice.

“It’s like a congregation of Joshes,” he said, adding: “And it’s like, what the hell is this?”

Kail said he was “honored to be a part of this golden age of Josh,” adding that as far as he’s concerned, at this time, the Bills quarterback is currently the top Josh on the scene. In politics, though, he sees Shapiro and Hawley fighting neck-and-neck for Josh prominence.

“With all the Joshes in politics, it’s becoming another four-letter word,” Gottheimer said in an interview. “I do think it’s the new four-letter word in politics.”

Another thing the Joshes have in common is that they’re constantly being gifted bottles of Josh wine — a common experience, they say, for any Josh.

“Every political fundraiser I do, people of course have Josh wine,” Gottheimer said. “Every time. And by the way, if we’re cooking dinner and friends come over, they bring a bottle of Josh wine, and they think it’s hilarious. And of course, my wife has insisted that we can never give anybody a bottle of Josh wine.”

The wine’s blue-collar namesake and reputation as a less-pretentious vino isn’t a bad image for a politician to be associated with. Joseph Carr — the founder of Joseph Cellars, which makes Josh wine — said he named it after his father, who was also named Joseph but, in his stock-car driving days, had the nickname Josh.

My father “was a blue-collar guy,” Carr said. “He was a lumberjack. He used to always say his favorite wine was Budweiser. My dad was also in politics. He was the mayor of our hometown.”

“On Facebook, I get so many messages from people that tell me about the Joshes in their life,” Carr said. There’s the woman who tells him that she spends a lot of time at home with “Josh” on Friday nights. The people who want him to know that “Josh” was at their wedding. And the woman who gave out bottles of the wine to celebrate the life of her husband, Josh, after he was killed in the line of duty as a police officer.

“We’ve been very fortunate to touch people’s lives in some small or larger way,” Carr said.

Carr also said he once tried to give singer Josh Groban some of his wine, but he declined because he already had too much. Groban, sadly, did not return a request for an interview for his thoughts on being a famous Josh.

In politics, Namerology.com founder Wattenberg said Josh is the latest in a long line of popular, one-word nicknames — and it may be one of the last.

“The other thing the name Josh has going for it is that it’s in a long tradition in American politics that the name you run under should be as familiar and friendly and unassuming as possible,” she said, adding, “Josh has the advantage of being short and familiar, whereas some of the more creative and contemporary names of the millennial generation don’t really offer that.”

A very different future is on the horizon, she said.

“The one-syllable, all-American, nice-guy name that has been the politician and salesman staple for a century is largely dying out,” she said. “Josh is one of the last of the breed. … It will be interesting to see how our political culture adjusts to a world where the politicians are all named Braden.”

Disclaimer: One of the authors of this article has a brother named Josh.