Meaning
Yousef is one English transliteration of Arabic Yūsuf (يوسف), the Arabic form of Joseph. The meaning carries over from Hebrew: "he will add" or "God increases."
Why so many spellings?
Arabic has no single official way to write its sounds in the Latin alphabet. The long "oo" in Yūsuf can be written ou (the French habit, common across North Africa and the Levant), u, or oo. The final consonant can be f or, in Algeria, written with a c as in Youcef. Families often picked whatever a clerk wrote on a passport, which is how one name became a dozen.
Yousef in the United States
Yousef is the most popular spelling of the name among American newborns. U.S. Social Security data shows 331 baby boys named Yousef in 2024, the highest count on record, putting it around #766 nationally. It has been recorded every year since 1970, and its births have grown nearly every decade since.
Yousef as a surname
Yousef is also a family name across the Arab world and among Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, for whom it comes from the Syriac form of Joseph. U.S. Census data shows the surname Yousef growing by about 70% between 2000 and 2010.