Jacob

Jacob is a name of Hebrew origin (יַעֲקֹב, Yaʿaqov) that passed through Greek (Iakob) and Latin (Iacob). In the Old Testament, Jacob, later called Israel, is the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the twin brother of Esau, and the father of the twelve founders of the tribes of Israel. His name is traditionally explained as meaning "holder of the heel" or "supplanter," referring to his birth and to twice depriving Esau of his firstborn rights, though another proposed meaning is "may God protect." In English, Jacob and James developed from the same source but became separate names. Jacob was mainly regarded as a Jewish name in medieval England before entering general Christian use after the Protestant Reformation. In the United States, it ranked first from 1999 to 2012. A famous bearer was Jacob Grimm, who wrote Grimm's Fairy Tales with his brother Wilhelm.

Jacob climbed to #1 for boys from 1999 through 2012. It remains prominent at #43 in 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 1998, with 36,031 births.