Josselin is a French form of Jocelyn, from a Germanic tribal name later used as a personal name.
Josselin is a name with Norman armor in its bones. It descends from the Old French and Old High German "Gautzelin," a diminutive form connected to the Gauts — the Germanic tribal group from which the Goths derived their name. The Normans brought a version of this name to England after 1066, where it appeared in medieval records as Joscelin, Goscelinus, and Josselin, worn by knights, bishops, and administrators who shaped the new Anglo-Norman world.
Joscelin of Brakelond, the twelfth-century monk whose chronicle of Bury St Edmunds became a beloved historical source, is among its more literary medieval bearers. In France, the name never entirely disappeared, quietly persisting in regional use before experiencing a genuine revival in the latter twentieth century. French parents rediscovered it as a name that felt both historically rooted and stylishly unisex — it is given to both girls and boys in contemporary France, carrying the same elegant gender-fluidity as names like Camille or Dominique.
The double-S spelling "Josselin" is also the name of a medieval walled town in Brittany, home to one of France's finest preserved châteaux, adding a romantic geographic anchor to the name's identity. In English-speaking countries, Josselin is a subtler alternative to the more common Jocelyn, offering the same soft musicality with an added sense of antiquity and Continental flair. Its relative rarity outside France ensures that bearers wear it with a kind of quiet distinctiveness — a name that rewards those who ask where it comes from.