FastNamesJacob
Hebrew name meaning "Derived from Hebrew Ya'akov (יַעֲקֹב), traditionally understood as 'heel-catcher' or 'supplanter' from 'aqeb ('heel'), or alternatively interpreted as an abbreviation of Ya'akov-el ('may God protect').". Ranked 43rd for boys in 2025.
Meaning and origin of Jacob
Derived from Hebrew Ya'akov (יַעֲקֹב), traditionally understood as 'heel-catcher' or 'supplanter' from 'aqeb ('heel'), or alternatively interpreted as an abbreviation of Ya'akov-el ('may God protect').
Linguistically, Jacob is classified under Hebrew naming traditions. It is typically pronounced "JAY-kuhb".
Popularity and ranking
In official US Social Security birth records from 1880 through 2025, Jacob has been given to a total of 988,227 boys. It has also been given to 2,305 girls.
Peak year: Jacob reached its highest relative share among boys in 1998, when 36,031 babies received the name (18,851 per million births).
All-time best rank: 1st place, first achieved in 1999.
Recent standing (2025): Ranked 43rd with 6,152 births. Ten years earlier in 2015, it ranked 4th (down 39 spots).
Busiest decade: More boys were named Jacob in the 1990s than in any other decade (298,415 births).
| Decade | Recorded births |
|---|---|
| 1880s | 3,566 |
| 1890s | 2,551 |
| 1900s | 2,191 |
| 1910s | 8,684 |
| 1920s | 9,047 |
| 1930s | 5,264 |
| 1940s | 4,853 |
| 1950s | 5,400 |
| 1960s | 5,075 |
| 1970s | 36,351 |
| 1980s | 124,254 |
| 1990s | 298,415 |
| 2000s | 274,077 |
| 2010s | 163,321 |
| 2020s | 45,178 |
Source: Social Security Administration, national baby name data, data through 2025. Names given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year aren't published, so totals are a little lower than actual births.
Where Jacob is most common in the US
Accounting for when Jacob was in fashion nationally, it has been most heavily concentrated in the following states (measured against the expected rate from each state's births):
- Wyoming: 1.5 times the national rate (1,854 births since 1910).
- North Dakota: 1.5 times the national rate (3,519 births since 1910).
- Iowa: 1.4 times the national rate (13,988 births since 1910).
- Vermont: 1.4 times the national rate (1,945 births since 1910).
- Wisconsin: 1.4 times the national rate (23,540 births since 1910).
Source: Social Security Administration, baby names by state, data through 2025. Names given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a state in a year aren't published, so totals are a little lower than actual births.
How many people have the name Jacob?
About 927,000 living American boys and men share the name Jacob. Additionally, an estimated 2,200 living American girls and women share the name.
The median age of an American named Jacob is 26 years old.
Estimated from Social Security Administration records (1880–2025) and official SSA cohort mortality tables.
History of the name Jacob
Jacob is a venerable biblical name borne by the Old Testament patriarch, the son of Isaac and Rebecca and twin brother of Esau. According to the Book of Genesis, Jacob was born grasping Esau's heel (Hebrew aqeb), leading to the popular folk etymology 'heel-catcher' or 'supplanter'. After wrestling with an angel at the ford of Jabbok, he was granted the honorific name Israel ('he who strives with God'), becoming the traditional progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel.
In the Christian tradition, the name filtered into Greek as Iakobos and Latin as Iacobus. While an Anglo-Norman and Old French phonetic shift produced the vernacular variant James in England, the classic Latinate form Jacob was preserved in biblical translations. Following the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English Puritans enthusiastically adopted Jacob alongside other Old Testament patriarchal names, firmly establishing it in British and colonial American parish registers.
In American records maintained by the Social Security Administration, Jacob has exhibited remarkable staying power. It ranked solidly among the top 100 boys' names in the late nineteenth century before undergoing a mid-twentieth-century ebb. Its modern revival began in the 1970s and accelerated rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999, Jacob captured the number one position for American male births and held that national peak for fourteen consecutive years through 2012, marking one of the longest consecutive reigns in modern demographic history.
Notable people named Jacob
- Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), Philologist and folklorist
- Jacob Riis (1849–1914), Journalist and social reformer
- Jacob Epstein (1880–1959), Sculptor
- Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), Painter
- Jacob Zuma (1942–), Former President of South Africa
Variants and related names
Spelling variants
Diminutives and nicknames
Related names
Sources and references
- Patrick Hanks, Kate Hardcastle, Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of First Names (2006), p. 138.
- E. G. Withycombe. The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (1977), p. 167.
- Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), p. 784.