José

José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ).

In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacular form of Joseph, which is also in current usage as a given name. José is also commonly used as part of masculine name composites, such as José Manuel, José Maria or Antonio José, and also in female name composites like Maria José or Marie-José. The feminine written form is ''Josée'' as in French.

In Netherlandic Dutch, however, ''José'' is a feminine given name and is pronounced ; it may occur as part of name composites like Marie-José or as a feminine first name in its own right; it can also be short for the name ''Josina'' and even a Dutch hypocorism of the name ''Johanna''.

In England, Jose is originally a Romano-Celtic surname, and people with this family name can usually be found in, or traced to, the English county of Cornwall, where it was especially frequent during the fourteenth century; this surname is pronounced , as in the English names ''Joseph'' or ''Josephine''. According to another interpretation ''Jose'' is cognate with ''Joyce''; ''Joyce'' is an English and Irish surname derived from the Breton personal name ''Iodoc,'' which was introduced to England by the Normans in the form ''Josse''. In medieval England the name was occasionally borne by women but more commonly by men; the variant surname ''Jose'' is local to Devon and Cornwall.

The common spelling of this given name in different languages is a case of interlingual homography. Similar cases occur in English given names (Albert, Bertrand, Christine, Daniel, Eric, and Ferdinand) that are not exclusive to the English language and can be found namely in French with a different pronunciation under exactly the same spelling.

Spanish pronunciation

The Spanish pronunciation is . In Castilian Spanish, the initial is similar to the German in the name Bach and Scottish Gaelic and Irish in '' loch'', though Spanish varies by dialect.

Historically, the modern pronunciation of the name ''José'' in Spanish is the result of the phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives since the fifteenth century, when it departed from Old Spanish. Unlike today's pronunciation of this name, in Old Spanish the initial was a voiced postalveolar fricative (as the sound "''je''" in French), and the middle stood for a voiced apicoalveolar fricative /z̺/ (as in the Castilian pronunciation of the word ''mismo''). The sounds, from a total of seven sibilants once shared by medieval Ibero-Romance languages, were partly preserved in Catalan, Galician, and Occitan, and have survived integrally in Mirandese and in the dialects of northern Portugal.

In those regions of north-western Spain where the Galician and Asturian languages are spoken, the name is spelt ''Xosé'' and pronounced .

Portuguese pronunciation

The Portuguese given name ''José'' is pronounced as . Examples of this are for instance former President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and football coach José Mourinho.
Historically, the conventional Portuguese spelling of the name was ''Joseph'', just as in English, though variants like ''Jozeph'' were not uncommon. Following the 1910 revolution, the Portuguese spelling was modernized. The first Reform of Portuguese orthography of 1911 elided the final mute consonants and from Biblical anthroponyms and toponyms (e.g. ''Joseph'', ''Nazareth'') and replaced them with the diacritic on the final , indicating the stress vowel (e.g. ''José'', ''Nazaré''). In Portuguese, the pronunciation of vowels varies depending on the country, regional dialect or social identity of the speaker: in the case of the ranging from /u/ to /o/; and in the case of , from /e/ to /ɛ/.

The Portuguese phonology developed originally from thirteenth-century Galician-Portuguese, having a number of speakers worldwide that is currently larger than French, Italian and German. In Portuguese the pronunciation of the graphemes and is in fact phonetically the same as in French, where the name ''José'' also exists and the pronunciation is similar, aside from obvious vowel variation and language-specific intonation.

French vernacular form

The French given name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacular form of the French name ''Joseph'', and is also popular under the feminine form ''Josée''. The masculine form is current as a given name, or as short for Joseph as is the case of French politician José Bové. The same masculine form is also commonly used as part of feminine name composites, as is the case of French athlete Marie-José Pérec. In turn, the feminine form ''Josée'' is only used customarily either as a feminine first name or as part of a feminine name composite, with respective examples in French film director Josée Dayan and Canadian actress Marie-Josée Croze.

Jewish use

A number of prominent Jewish men, including sportsmen, entertainers and historical figures, are known publicly as ''Joseph'' or Jose, another form of ''Yossi'' (Hebrew: יֹוסִי), and a diminutive of ''Yosef'' or ''Yossef'' (Hebrew: יוֹסֵף).

Feminine form

Both the Spanish and Portuguese feminine written forms of the name are Josefa, pronounced in Spanish, and in Portuguese. The name ''José'' also occurs in feminine name composites (e.g. ''Maria José'', ''Marie-José'').

''Josée'' is a French feminine first name, pronounced , relates to the longer feminine form of ''Joséphine'' , and may also be coupled with other names in feminine name composites.

Similarly, in Flemish, ''José'' is a male given name, for which the feminine written form is ''Josée'', with both forms being pronounced , but the spelling stems originally from neighboring French-speaking influence.

In Dutch, however, ''José'' is pronounced , which is a feminine given name in its own right, sometimes also used as short for the feminine name ''Josina''. Examples are Olympic swimmer José Damen and pop singer José Hoebee.

''Josephine'' and ''Joséphine'' are in use in English-speaking countries, while ''Josefine'' is popular in Western Europe.

Diminutives

One of the common Spanish diminutives of the name is ''Pepe'', which is a repetition of the last syllable of the earlier form ''Josep''. (Popular belief attributes the origin of Pepe to the abbreviation of ''pater putativus'', P.P., recalling the role of St Joseph in predominantly Catholic Spanish-speaking countries.) In Hispanic America, the diminutives ''Cheché'' and ''Chepe'' also occur, as in Colombian soccer player José Eugenio ("Cheché") Hernández and Mexican soccer player José ("Chepe") Naranjo.

In Portuguese, the most widely used diminutive form of the name is ''Zé'', and less used forms include ''Zeca'', ''Zezé'', ''Zezinho'', ''Zuca'', and ''Juca''. The augmentative of the diminutive may occur as in ''Zezão'', as well as the diminutive of the diminutive ''Zequinha'', Zezinho, Josesito.

People

Mononyms

* Jose (Malayalam: ജോസ്), Indian actor in Malayalam films
* José of Braganza (Portuguese: Bragança), Portuguese noble of the House of Braganza, Archbishop of Braga, illegitimate son of King Peter II and Francisca Clara da Silva
* Jose the Galilean (Hebrew: יוסי הגלילי, (Yose HaGelili)), 1st–2nd century Jewish rabbi, member of the Tannaim involved in compiling the Mishna
* Prince José, Portuguese noble of the House of Braganza (Portuguese: Bragança), son of Queen Maria I and King Peter III, heir apparent with many titles including Prince of Brazil and Duke of Braganza, died of smallpox at age 27 before ascending to the throne
* Joseph I of Portugal (José Francisco António Inácio Norberto Agostinho), also known as José I of Portugal

First names

A

* José Abad Santos, Filipino lawyer and jurist, 5th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines
* José Abal, Spanish Paralympics athlete and medallist
* José Manuel Abascal Gómez, Spanish runner and Olympics medallist
* José Javier Abella Fanjul, Mexican international football player
* Jose ben Abin (Hebrew: יוסי בר אבין), significant 4th century CE Jewish Talmudist
* José Aboulker, French Algerian neurosurgeon, leader of French Algeria's anti-Nazi resistance during World War II, later a French politician
* José Antonio Abreu Anselmi, Venezuelan orchestra conductor, pianist, economist, professor of economics and law at Universidad Simón Bolívar, activist, and politician
* José María de Achá Valiente, Bolivian general, 17th President of Bolivia after leading a coup against dictator José María Linares
* José de Acosta, member of the Society of Jesus (S.J.), Spanish Catholic missionary, theologian and naturalist
* José Adem (1921–1991), Mexican mathematician
* José Manuel Cerqueira Afonso dos Santos, also known to the public as José Afonso, Zeca Afonso and Zeca, influential Portuguese folk and political musician, known especially for the role of his music in the resistance against the dictatorial regime of Oliveira Salazar
* José Bernardo Alcedo, Peruvian Romantic composer, wrote the National Anthem of Peru
* José Aldo da Silva Oliveira Jnr., Brazilian mixed martial artist
* José Martiniano de Alencar, Brazilian politician, lawyer, orator, novelist and dramatist
* José Alencar Gomes da Silva, Brazilian businessman and politician, 23rd Vice-President of Brazil
* Joseph of Anchieta, Spanish Jesuit missionary to the Portuguese colony of Brazil and Catholic saint
* José Martiniano Pereira de Alencar, Brazilian politician, journalist and onetime Catholic priest, father of José de Alencar
* José de Jesús Alfaro, Nicaraguan politician, Head of State of Nicaragua
* José Maria Alkmin, Brazilian politician, 15th Vice President of Brazil
* José Allende, Peruvian politician, 14th Prime Minister of Peru
* José Alperovich, Argentinian politician, governor of Tucumán Province
* José Carlos Altuve, Venezuelan-born American baseball player
* José Álvarez de las Asturias de Bohórquez y Goyeneche, Spanish noble and equestrian, Marqués de los Trujillos, Olympics competitor
* José Álvarez de Pereira y Cubero, Spanish Neoclassical sculptor
* José Álvarez de Toledo Osorio y Gonzaga, Spanish noble and politician, Duke of Alba, 11th Marquis of Villafranca, Grandee of Spain, 15th Duke of Medina Sidonia

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