Jacob
Meaning of Jacob
Jacob stems from the Hebrew Yaʿaqōḇ, commonly translated as “holder of the heel” or, in modern gloss, “supplanter”—an irony the name has lived up to by repeatedly nudging competitors aside on American birth charts. Pronounced JAY-kub, it traveled into English via the Latin Iacobus, gathering centuries of theological, literary, and cultural weight: the biblical patriarch who fathered the Twelve Tribes, the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, and—at a lighter wattage—Dickens’s ever-cautionary Jacob Marley. U.S. vital-statistics data confirm its practical resonance; after a steady climb through the mid-20th century, Jacob occupied the number-one slot from 1999 through 2012, a thirteen-year run that would satisfy even its scriptural namesake’s competitive streak. Although the name has slipped to 41st in 2024, annual registrations still hover near 6,500, a volume many trendier inventions would envy. Paired with the brisk nickname “Jake,” Jacob offers parents a dual-mode package: formally rooted, casually adaptable, and empirically validated by over a century of sustained demand.
Pronunciation
English
- Pronunced as JAY-kub (/ˈdʒeɪkəb/)
U.S. Popularity Chart
States Popularity Chart
Notable People Named Jacob
| Jacob Armstead Lawrence was an American painter whose dynamic cubism vividly portrayed African American history and Harlem life, and he later taught for 16 years at the University of Washington. |
| Jacob Grimm - Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, the elder of the Brothers Grimm, was a German scholar who formulated Grimms law and coauthored the Deutsches Worterbuch, wrote Deutsche Mythologie, and edited Grimms Fairy Tales. |
| Canadian actor Jacob Tremblay rose to fame with Room in 2015, winning the Critics Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer and becoming the youngest Screen Actors Guild supporting actor nominee. |
| Jacob Johan Anckarström was a Swedish officer who assassinated King Gustav III and was executed for regicide. |
| Jacob T. Schwartz - Jack Schwartz was an American mathematician and computer scientist at the NYU Courant Institute who designed the SETL language, started the Ultracomputer project, and founded and chaired the NYU Department of Computer Science from 1964 to 1980. |
