Humanverse

Jace vs Jake

American parents have registered 129,539 Jakes since 1880, against 92,412 Jaces. But in 2025 it was Jace that was commoner, 3,091 babies to 682.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jace against Jake, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jace Jake

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Jake for 131 years and Jace for 15 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Jace Jake
Total US births 92,412129,539
Most in one year 6,4464,487
Babies in 2025 3,091682
Estimated living today 91,000115,000
Median age today 1123
Peak year 20132004
Best rank 66th boys98th boys
Rank in 2025 114th457th
First recorded 19361880
Girls / boys 868 / 91,544217 / 129,322

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Jakes alive today are over 23; half the Jaces are over 11. That is 12 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Jace Jake
England and Wales 1,91867,109
Ireland 1816,354
Scotland 2693,280
Northern Ireland 902,630
Belgium 191365
France 45295
Switzerland 62141

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Jace and Jake.