The first name Jacob is a variant of the name Jakob and originally comes from the Bible. In Hebrew it means ‘may he (i.e., God) protect’ or ‘to follow’, however, in folk etymologically it is often translated as ‘he deceives’ or ‘to supplant’.
Jacob is a first name typically given to boys, but in rare cases also used as a girls name.
In the US, Jacob is one of the most popular names ever. In the SmartGenius ranking recently, it has regularly been among the top 10 most common boys names and is currently in place 7. In fact, one out auf 300 boys under the age of 10 is named Jacob. In total, there are currently 956,461 people – children, adults and seniors – named Jacob living in the United States, which is approximately 0.29 % of the entire population.
The first name Jacob is a variant of the name Jakob and originally comes from the Bible. In Hebrew it means ‘may he (i.e., God) protect’ or ‘to follow’, however, in folk etymologically it is often translated as ‘he deceives’ or ‘to supplant’.
By the way… Jacob is also the name of the German philologist and author Jacob Grimm, who together with his brother Willhelm Grimm collected and published folk tales such as 'Little Red Riding Hood' and 'Snow White.'
Jake Gyllenhaal (*1980)
Jacob 'Jake' Benjamin Gyllenhaal is an American actor and film producer. He descends from a Hollywood family that includes his father Stephen Gyllenhaal (director), his mother Naomi Foner (screenwriter) and his older sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is also an actress. He has starred in 'Donnie Darko', 'Prisoners' or 'The Day After Tommorow', among others.
Jacob Grimm (1785 - 1863)
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm was the older brother of Wilhelm Grimm. Together they are the famous Brothers Grimm, who together published the 'Grimms' Fairy Tales'. Furthermore, he is known as the discoverer of the 'Grimm's laws of linguistics'. He also collaborated on the monumental 'Deutsches W
Charles William Jacob (1921 - 2015)
Charles William Jacob was a stockbroker in the City of London who was a pioneer and promoter of ethical investment. He was specialized in gilt-edged and fixed-interest stocks. Moreover he was a methodist preacher.
Jacob L. Devers (1887 - 1979)
He was an American general. During World War II he commanded the American-French 6th Army Group in Europe with which he captured large parts of Alsace in 1944.
When you hear the name Jacob, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Jacob? Are you also called Jacob? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
there is a unincorporated community called Jacob.
is located in Quebec and is a tributary of the north shore of the Malbale River.
you can study at the international Jacobs University Bremen.
14 - this is the number of times that the first name Jacob has entered the top position, i.e. rank 1, of the most popular first names for boys in the USA. The last time was not so long ago, in the year 2012, when 19,117 newborn boys were given this beautiful name. And even when it wasn't on top in the past, it has been given by new parents to their sons every year since first name statistics began in 1880, putting it in the exclusive circle of only 442 first names for boys that are given at least 5 times a year in the USA. This makes Jacob one of the timeless classics among first names that have truly become part of the American identity.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Jacob was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, the first name Jacob was given 7,612 times to newborn boys, ranking it #33. The name was given least in the year 1962, where it ranked #345 - but even then 473 of newborn boys were given this first name.
There are only 386 different male names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Jacob is one of them. However, Jacob is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Nevada seem to particularly fancy this name – the 6,357 men called Jacob who live here are 1,12% of all male residents and push their name up to #13 in our SmartGenius statistics, easily placing it in the top 100 most common male names in Nevada. If you look at all the states in the USA together, you can currently find as many as 956,461 people with the name Jacob. Across all regions and age groups, this lands Jacob on position 30 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top male names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter J is the most popular first letter for boys’ names. 10.1% of all common boys’ names in the US start with this letter. The second most common first letter in boys’ names is A.
With five letters, the name Jacob is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 10.1% of all boys’ names start with a J, this initial letter occurs nearly three times as often as all other letters on average. And, by the way, of all the boys’ names that begin with the letter J, the name James is the most common.
If your name is Jacob and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Jacob, you can simply say:
Joker
Apple
Cat
Orange
Butterfly
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Jacob
Jacob
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
J
A
C
O
B
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
J
A
C
O
B
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Jacob sounds like this:
