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I've always loved Joshua but lately I've been moving away from it. It seems like a name for a little boy, while Joseph is a man's name. Joseph has always been popular whereas Joshua was almost obsolete before the 1970s. However Joshua does have some advantages over Joseph. My parents love the name and wanted to use it for my brother in 1972 but were talked out of it - people said it was far too old-fashioned to be used. It would be a neat way of honoring them. Joseph is also the middle name of my boyfriend's brother, which makes it slightly unusable. However I've decided to ignore family connections unless it's a first name, otherwise there would be no names left to use (he has 6 siblings, I've got 4 and we both have numerous cousins and second-cousins).

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Opinions? In both causes the child would mostly be called by the first name with Joss as an occasional nn (in other words my family would call him Joss but everyone else would call him Joseph or Joshua).