Jacob

Jacob meaning

Jacob is a Christian and international boy's name of Hebrew origin.

Heel-catcher, that is, supplanter

Jacob comes from the Hebrew Yaʿaqov (יַעֲקֹב). Strong's concordance glosses it 'heel-catcher', that is, supplanter, and Brown-Driver-Briggs connects it with the word for 'heel', reading 'supplanter' and also noting the sense 'one closely following'. Genesis 25:26 tells how he was born holding the heel of his twin brother Esau, and Esau later puns on the name when Jacob takes his blessing. Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah, was renamed Israel and is the traditional ancestor of the people of Israel. In Kerala, Syrian Christian families have long used the Malayalam forms Chacko and Yakob, so the name has old roots in India as well as in the West.

Source: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890), Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, H3290 · entry Ya'aqob · See the entry · checked 25 Oct 2026

References: Strong's Hebrew 3290, Ya'aqob (with Brown-Driver-Briggs) · Britannica, Jacob · Wikipedia, Chacko

Famous namesakes

• Jacob, the patriarch renamed Israel, in Genesis

Popularity abroad

• #43 United States, boys 2025 (down 3 from 40 in 2024)
  US Social Security Administration
• #41 England and Wales, boys 2025
  Office for National Statistics

Official birth registrations. India publishes no national name statistics.

Spellings

Jacob · Jakob

Related names

Also starting with Jac-

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