Holiday Calendar

National Jose Day

Next celebratedSunday, September 13, 2026

In Spain 208,943 women carry José inside their given name, almost all of them as María José. September 13 is the day for every José, though the old one, Saint Joseph's feast, is March 19.

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Last updated September 5, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATESeptember 13
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A name day the saints' calendar never assigned.

No founder, sponsoring organisation or first observance is documented for National Jose Day. The earliest archived third-party listing of it was captured in August 2022, which dates the listing rather than the day itself.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

Spain counts this name twice and gets two different answers

Spain's national statistics institute publishes its list of the country's most common men's names twice, side by side, and the two lists disagree about who is first. Counted as a name on its own, José comes third, with 531,575 men, behind Antonio and Manuel. Counted wherever it appears, including inside compounds like José Luis and José Antonio, José is first with 2,636,552.

That is 113.3 of every 1,000 men registered in Spain, or roughly one in nine. Antonio, first on the other list, reaches 1,378,825 on this one. The institute is not hiding the choice: its own footnote uses José as the worked example of what the second column counts.

What September 13 is not is a saint's day. The name day that Spanish-speaking Catholics have kept for centuries is March 19, the Feast of Saint Joseph, which also serves as Father's Day in Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Italy. No source explains why this observance picked September instead.

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ORIGINS

Jose Day history

CHAPTER 01

Three generations of first place

Spain's population register lets you sort names by the decade their bearers were born, and José sits at the top of three of them. Among men born before 1930 it leads at 86.9 per 1,000. It leads again for the 1930s at 86.0, and again for the 1940s at 69.8.

Then Antonio took it. José fell to second in the 1950s cohort, at 48.9 per 1,000. By the 1960s cohort it was third, at 28.7.

Read only that column and the story looks like a simple decline.

CHAPTER 02

The name did not shrink. It branched.

The column beside it says something stranger. Among men born in the 1950s, seven of Spain's fifty most common male names are José or begin with José, and five of those sit in the cohort's top fifteen: José second, José Luis sixth, José Antonio seventh, José María ninth, José Manuel twelfth.

The 1960s cohort repeats it, seven again in the top fifty and five in the top fifteen. So the peak of the José family arrives after José alone has already lost first place. Parents had not stopped choosing the name, they had started attaching it to a second one.

CHAPTER 03

What is left in the register now

Among men born since 2000 the compounds are gone from the top fifty entirely. Only the bare José remains, at rank 32 for the 2000s, 42 for the 2010s and 36 for 2020 and 2021.

Its rate across those three cohorts runs 6.1, 5.2 and 5.6 per 1,000, which is close to flat rather than still falling. A caution about all of these figures: this is a register of people alive and living in Spain on January 1, 2022, not a record of births, so the oldest cohorts are thinned by death and the last one covers only two years.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Jose Day

Counting

Most name rankings make this choice silently. Spain prints both answers and lets you pick.

The gap between José at third and José at first is not a correction or a better dataset. It is one decision about whether José Luis counts as a José, and Spain's statisticians publish the answer both ways rather than picking one. Most name rankings you will read made the same choice silently, and told you nothing about it.

Women

A man's name that women answer to

208,943 women registered in Spain have José inside their given name, almost all as María José, which ranks seventeenth among women's full names on its own. Behind the Name records the same habit, calling José a feminine middle name in Spanish and Portuguese usage, often paired with María.

Spelling

Josep is not inside that number

The Catalan Josep is counted as its own name string rather than folded into José: 42,744 men as a full name and 74,522 counted inside compounds. None of it sits within José's 2,636,552, so that total covers the Castilian spelling alone.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Jose Day by the Numbers

2,636,552
Men in Spain with José in their given name, counting compounds
531,575
Men whose whole given name is just José, which ranks third
208,943
Women in Spain carrying José inside their given name
86.9
Per 1,000 among men born before 1930, first place in that cohort

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

September 13 is the José name day.

The truth

Not in the tradition that invented name days. The Feast of Saint Joseph on March 19 is the one Spanish-speaking Catholics keep, and Behind the Name's list of Spanish name days for José runs to nine dates, including September 18. September 13 is not among them. This is a recent, American-style observance that never followed the saints' calendar, and no source documents why it landed where it did.

The myth

There is one right answer to how common José is in Spain.

The truth

There are two, and the statisticians publish both. As a standalone name José is third. Counted wherever it appears, including inside José Luis and Francisco José, it is first by a margin of more than a million over Antonio. Neither number is wrong; they answer different questions, and a ranking that does not say which one it used has told you very little.

The myth

A José only gets one day on the calendar.

The truth

A José has had a claim on at least two other dates for a long time. Beyond March 19, Pope Pius XII created a separate Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker on May 1, which the calendar published in 1969 reduced to an optional memorial, the lowest rank a saint's day carries.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Jose Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Ask which José you are talking to

In Spain the interesting question is rarely the name on its own. Ask a José whether the register has him as José, José Luis, José Antonio or Francisco José, and whether anyone has called him by the full thing since school.

LOOK

Look up your own name the way Spain does

The decade-of-birth tables are free to download and list the fifty most common names for every cohort back past 1930. Find the decade you were born in and see whether your name was ordinary or unusual at the time.

PUT

Put March 19 in the calendar as well

If you are marking a José who grew up in a Spanish-speaking family, the date that family is likely to keep falls in March, not September. Today does not replace it, and a José who has spent a lifetime celebrating in spring will tell you so.

GET

Get the pronunciation right for the right country

The spelling gives you no help. A Spanish José is xo-SE, a European Portuguese one is closer to zhu-ZE, and a Brazilian one is zho-ZE. Ask which before you commit.

PUT

Put the accent back on

The day's own name is spelled Jose, and Spain's register prints the name in capitals with no accent either. The name is José. The accent is the part that tells a reader where the stress falls, so write it on the card even if the calendar does not.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Jose Day?

1 / 6

Spain publishes two counts for José. What separates them?

Answer

No, they are two different observances that happen to share a name. The one kept in Spanish-speaking Catholic tradition falls on March 19, while National Jose Day is a recent, American-style observance with no tie to the saints' calendar.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

4sources
2primary records
2independently dated
Primary records
Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain)Estadística del Padrón Continuo a fecha 01/01/2022
Nombres más frecuentes: los 100 nombres más frecuentes para el total nacional y por provincia de residencia
Spain's official table of the most common given names among registered residents, published in two parallel conventions: the name as a whole string, and the name counted wherever it appears inside a compound. It carries the footnote that uses José as the worked example of the second convention, and the totals for José, Josep and Josefa for both sexes.
View source
Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain)Estadística del Padrón Continuo a fecha 01/01/2022
Nombres más frecuentes por fecha de nacimiento: los 50 nombres más frecuentes por década de nacimiento
The fifty most common male and female given names for each decade-of-birth cohort of Spanish residents, with counts and a rate per 1,000. This is the record of José holding first place in the oldest cohorts, of the José compounds crowding the top fifteen in the 1950s and 1960s, and of both leaving the list after 2000.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name José
Reference entry giving José as the Spanish and Portuguese form of Joseph and a French variant, with the three national pronunciations, the Spanish and Portuguese diminutives, the feminine form Josefa, and a list of nine Spanish name days for the name, of which March 19 is the principal one and September 13 is not among them.
View source
Wikipedia
Saint Joseph's Day
Account of the March 19 Feast of Saint Joseph, its rank of solemnity, its dedication in Western calendars by the 10th century and establishment in Rome by 1479, the separate Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker on May 1 and its reduction to an optional memorial in the calendar published in 1969, and the feast doubling as Father's Day in Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Italy.
View source
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