Jocob
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "supplanter" or "one who follows".
Name Census estimates that about 329 living Americans carry the first name Jocob. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jocob today is around 36 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jocob births was 1987 (20 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jocob. 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.
People living today
329
~ 1 in 1,041,806 Americans
Peak year
1987
20 babies that year
Average age
36
years old
2009 SSA rank
#13,383
Tracked since 1975
Census
Jocob in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 385 people with the first name Jocob, which placed it at #24,842 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
#24,842
National first-name rank
People counted
385
385 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
55.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jocob
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jocob is White at 55.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (33.0%) and Black (4.9%). 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 Jocob 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 Jocob at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White55.1% · 212
- Hispanic or Latino33.0% · 127
- Black or African American4.9% · 19
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.6% · 14
- Two or more races2.6% · 10
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 3
Popularity
Jocob: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jocob from the 1970s through to the 2000s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 142 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1980s peak, Jocob remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jocob 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 Jocob during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jocobs live
Origin
Meaning and history of Jocob
The name Jocob has its origins in the Hebrew language and culture. It is derived from the Biblical Hebrew name Ya'aqov, which is thought to have meant "holder of the heel" or "supplanter". This name was borne by the Biblical patriarch Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebecca, and father of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel.
The name appears frequently throughout the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament. It is given to Jacob, the third of the Biblical patriarchs, who is described as having wrestled with an angel and later had his name changed to Israel. Jacob is a key figure in the book of Genesis and his story is recounted in great detail.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Jocob comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish religious manuscripts dating back to the 3rd century BCE. The name is spelled in various ways in these scrolls, including Ya'aqov and Ya'aqob.
Throughout history, there have been several notable figures who bore the name Jocob or one of its variations. One of the earliest was Jacob of Sarug (451-521 CE), a renowned Syrian poet and theologian who wrote extensively on Christian themes and doctrine.
In the Middle Ages, there was Jacob ben Reuben (c. 1070-1171), a Jewish poet and traveler from Spain who wrote about his travels in the Mediterranean region.
During the Renaissance period, Jacob Böhme (1575-1624) was a German Christian mystic and philosopher whose work influenced later thinkers such as Hegel and Schelling.
In more recent times, Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) was a German philologist and folklore scholar who, along with his brother Wilhelm, compiled the famous collection of fairy tales known as Grimms' Fairy Tales.
Another notable figure was Jacob Rodrigues Pereira (1715-1780), a Dutch philosopher and writer who was one of the earliest proponents of the Enlightenment in the Netherlands.
People
Jocob + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jocob 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
Jocob: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jocob?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 329 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jocob 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 1,041,806 US residents.
Is Jocob a common name?
We classify Jocob as "Very Rare". It ranks above 80.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 341 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jocob most popular?
The single biggest year for Jocob was 1987, when 20 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jocob is about 36 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jocob in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 385 people with the name Jocob, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,842 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 Jocob 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 Jocob?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jocob appears almost entirely male. Of the 380 people counted with this name, 99.5% 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 Jocob?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jocob is White at 55.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (33.0%) and Black (4.9%). 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 Jocob most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jocob in the 2020 Census, accounting for 55.1% (212 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 Jocob in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jocob a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jocob 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 Jocob still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jocob 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 Jocob 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 Jocob?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many people share the name Jocob at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.