Jacob · Daily fortune

Jacob is a masculine name of Hebrew origin. It comes through Latin Iacob and Greek Iakob from the Hebrew יַעֲקֹב (Yaʿaqov), the name of the Old Testament patriarch who was born holding his twin brother Esau's heel. Genesis explains the name as "holder of the heel" or "supplanter", because Jacob twice deprived Esau of his rights as firstborn; another theory derives it from a fuller name meaning "may God protect". James is the same name by a different Latin route. In England Jacob was mainly a Jewish name in the Middle Ages and became a general Christian name after the Reformation. It was the top American boys' name from 1999 to 2012 and ranked #43 in 2025.

Behind the Name traces Jacob "from the Latin Iacob, which was from the Greek Ἰακώβ (Iakob), which was from the Hebrew name יַעֲקֹב (Yaʿaqov)". The biblical explanation is that Jacob "was born holding his twin brother Esau's heel, and his name is explained as meaning 'holder of the heel' or 'supplanter'" (Genesis 27:36). Behind the Name adds that "other theories claim that it is in fact derived from a hypothetical name like יַעֲקֹבְאֵל (Yaʿaqovʾel) meaning 'may God protect'". Wikipedia gives the same chain (Latin Iacobus, Greek Iakobos, Hebrew Yaʿaqōḇ) and says the name comes "either from the Hebrew root עקב ʿqb meaning 'to follow, to be behind' but also 'to supplant, circumvent, assail, overreach', or from the word for 'heel'", noting that the ya- prefix marks a third-person form ("he will", "he may"); it also lists "may God protect" and "may he protect" as alternative readings. Both sources therefore agree that the heel/supplanter reading is the biblical one and that a protective-name origin is a competing scholarly theory, which is why confidence is given as "likely" rather than "established". James is not a separate name: Behind the Name explains that it comes from Latin Iacomus, a later variant of the New Testament form Iacobus, and that many languages do not keep separate spellings for the two.

In the Old Testament Jacob, later called Israel, is the son of Isaac and Rebecca and the father of the twelve founders of the twelve tribes of Israel; his later name Israel is glossed by Behind the Name as "God contends". In England, Behind the Name says, "Jacob was mainly regarded as a Jewish name during the Middle Ages, though the variant James was used among Christians", and it "came into general use as a Christian name after the Protestant Reformation". Wikipedia notes that the Jacob/James distinction is peculiar to English and is not maintained in most other European languages, and that the name is used by Christians in South India as both given name and surname. In America the name was already moderately common but grew steadily from the early 1970s to the end of the 1990s and was the top-ranked boys' name from 1999 to 2012. Wikipedia adds that it ranked twelfth among Canadian boys in 2022. Behind the Name names Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), the German linguist who compiled Grimm's Fairy Tales with his brother Wilhelm, as a famous bearer.

Jacob ranked #43 for boys in the United States in 2025 according to the Social Security Administration. That is a long way down from its peak: Behind the Name and Wikipedia both record that it was the most popular American boys' name from 1999 through 2012, after rising steadily from the early 1970s. Wikipedia also reports it as the twelfth most popular boys' name in Canada in 2022.

English Jacob is /ˈd͡ʒeɪ.kəb/, JAY-kəb, with a soft J and the stress on the first syllable. Behind the Name also gives the Dutch pronunciation /ˈjaː.kɔp/ and a Danish respelling YAH-kob, both with the continental Y-sound for J. Most other languages use their own form of the name; the forms below are drawn from Behind the Name's list, and pronunciations other than the English, Dutch and Danish ones were not verified in this pass.

Jacob is a biblical classic with an unusual recent history: it was the top American boys' name for fourteen years, which means a whole generation of Jacobs is now in its teens and twenties. That gives the name a slightly millennial-era feel today even though its roots are ancient and its ties to James, Jake and the Old Testament patriarchs keep it firmly traditional. It reads solid and unpretentious on a form, shortens naturally to Jake, and sits comfortably beside other Old Testament names that had similar runs, such as Joshua, Noah and Ethan. Parents choosing it now are picking a familiar name past its fashion peak rather than a rising one.

The defining bearer is the biblical patriarch himself. Beyond him the sources consulted name one famous modern Jacob, the German linguist Jacob Grimm, and a handful of Eastern Orthodox and Latter-day Saint religious figures from the Wikipedia disambiguation-style article. The list below is restricted to those bearers.

Names that share Jacob's Old Testament pedigree, its same-source relatives, or its solid two-syllable sound.