Entry № 5020 · English origin

Joy Joy — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

Gender
Girl
Origin
English
Meaning
"Joy, delight"
Syllables
1
First recorded
17th c. (English Puritan)

A name that means "joy, delight".

Joy is the English word — from the Old French joie, from the Latin gaudia, meaning "joys" or "delights." It became a Puritan virtue name in the 17th century, joining Faith, Hope, and Grace as direct word-names given to daughters.

Joy entered the U.S. Today it sits in the U.S. top 350 and is rising — short, direct, with no need for explanation.

Joy. The word, as the name.

The name in its native script.

Joy
Transliteration
Joy
Pronunciation
/ dʒɔɪ /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Joy stands.

Joy does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Joys before her.

Real people
Joy Behar
American comedian, The View.
born 1942
Joy Mangano
American inventor.
born 1956
In fiction
Joy
Emotion in Pixar's Inside Out.
2015 film

Names connected to Joy.

The number behind Joy.

5

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Joy reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.