José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. Joseph, which is also in current usage as jose cuervo margarita 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.

Josina and even a Dutch hypocorism of the name Johanna. 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. The common spelling of this given name in different languages is a case of interlingual homography. English language and can be found namely in French with a different pronunciation under exactly the same spelling. 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. 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. 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. 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. Examples are Olympic swimmer José Damen and pop singer José Hoebee.