Jacob
Hebrew name meaning "supplanter" or "one who follows at the heel".
Roughly 929,976 people in the United States go by the first name Jacob, which ranks #41 nationally when sorted by estimated living bearers. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jacob today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jacob births was 1998 (36,087 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Patricia (892,673).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jacob. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Jacob with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jacob is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 2,305 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
930K
~ 1 in 369 Americans
Peak year
1998
36,087 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#41
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jacob in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 805,737 people with the first name Jacob, which placed it at #37 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#37
National first-name rank
People counted
806K
805,737 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
266.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
74.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jacob
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jacob is White at 74.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (15.2%) and Two or More Races (4.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Jacob described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Jacob at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White74.9% · 603,728
- Hispanic or Latino15.2% · 122,699
- Two or more races4.2% · 33,837
- Black or African American2.9% · 23,280
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.1% · 16,711
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 5,482
Gender
Gender distribution for Jacob
Out of the 984,245 babies given the name Jacob since 1880, 99.8% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Jacob as a male name
- Ranked #41 in 2024
- 6,496 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1998 (36,027 births)
Jacob as a female name
- Ranked #10,576 in 2024
- 9 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2004 (171 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jacob appears almost entirely male. Of the 805,730 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Jacob: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jacob from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 299,001 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jacob by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Jacob during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jacobs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Jacob, while District of Columbia, Wyoming, Vermont recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 19,060 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jacob
The given name Jacob has its origins in the Hebrew language and culture, dating back to ancient times. It is derived from the Hebrew name Ya'aqov, which in turn comes from the Hebrew verb "aqav," meaning "to follow" or "to be behind." The name is believed to have been first used around the 2nd millennium BCE.
Jacob is a prominent name in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament. It is the name of one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites, Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca. The Book of Genesis recounts the story of Jacob, who was later renamed Israel, and his struggles with his twin brother Esau. Jacob's name is mentioned numerous times throughout the biblical text.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Jacob can be found in the Hebrew Bible, where Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, is born around 1900 BCE. Several notable historical figures have borne the name Jacob, including Jacob ben Asher (1269-1343), a prominent Jewish codifier of Jewish law, and Jacob ben Judah Leon (1602-1675), a Jewish author and Talmudic scholar.
In the New Testament, the name Jacob is mentioned several times, including as the name of one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. This apostle, also known as James the Less or James the Younger, is believed to have lived in the 1st century CE.
Throughout history, several other notable figures have borne the name Jacob. These include Jacob Grimm (1785-1863), a German philologist and one of the Brothers Grimm, known for their collection of fairy tales; Jacob Riis (1849-1914), a Danish-American social reformer and photographer; and Jacob Zuma (born 1942), a former President of South Africa.
Other famous individuals named Jacob include Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), an American-British sculptor; Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), a Swiss historian of art and culture; and Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682), a Dutch Golden Age painter.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jacob
People
Jacob + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jacob as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with J
Other first names starting with J with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Jacob: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jacob?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 929,976 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jacob going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 369 US residents.
Is Jacob a common name?
We classify Jacob as "Very Common". It ranks above 100% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 984,245 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jacob most popular?
The single biggest year for Jacob was 1998, when 36,087 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jacob is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jacob in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 805,737 people with the name Jacob, or 266.77 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #37 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Jacob in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Jacob?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jacob appears almost entirely male. Of the 805,730 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Jacob?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jacob is White at 74.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (15.2%) and Two or More Races (4.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Jacob most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jacob in the 2020 Census, accounting for 74.9% (603,728 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Jacob in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jacob a male name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Jacob in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Jacob still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jacob in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Jacob can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Jacob?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Jacob at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.