Name Awesome

Yaacov

Boys' name

He will/shall heel

Yaacov has been given to 127 babies in the U.S. since 1979. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 2000, with 10 recorded.

Babies named Yaacov, 2024

1 in 669,000

Yaacov over time, 1880–2025

Boys
02.557.51018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Yaacov: meaning, origin, and history

He will/shall heel

Hebrew

What Yaacov means

Yaacov means “he will/shall heel”, associated with yaʿăqōḇ.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From Biblical Hebrew יַעֲקֹב (yaʿăqōḇ, literally “he will/shall heel”).

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Yaacov (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Yaacov is used in English. Its origins include Hebrew.

Yaacov comes through Biblical Hebrew יַעֲקֹב.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Jacob.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 127 boys were recorded with the name Yaacov between 1979 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 10 in 2000; its best national rank was #5,133 in 1985.

How common is Yaacov?

Yaacov had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 669,000
5 of 3,342,801 births
Among boys only
1 in 345,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
463,412 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Yaacov sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2024 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 463,412 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Yaacov. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Yaacovs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Yaacov was born before 2000 — so the typical Yaacov is around 25 today.

Median birth year
2000
About 25 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
37.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
55.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
127
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 37.0% of all recorded uses (47).

Is Yaacov rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 2000 (10)
Years since peak
25
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#5,133
1985

Spellings of Yaacov

Yaacov is not the most common spelling — Yaakov is, with 63.3% against Yaacov's 1.3%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Yaacov is used

Across 1910–2025, Yaacov was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 666,192 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Yaacov has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Yaacov around the world

Where Yaacov ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2004–2011
    #4,647
    in 2011
  • France
    1977–2025
    #2,667
    in 2025

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.

Yaacov by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#5,133
1985
Peak year
2000
10 that year
First recorded
1979
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
127
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Yaacov

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

YaasirYaalanYaakovYaaseenYaamirYacovYaaqoub

Sibling names for Yaacov

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Yaacov

Top names of 2000, Yaacov's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 1985Boys' names starting with Y