Humanverse

Jacob vs Jacopo

American parents have registered 990,532 Jacobs since 1880, against 11 Jacopos. Jacob is still ahead, with 6,152 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jacob against Jacopo, 1880 to 2025 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jacob Jacopo

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

Jacob has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2010, when Jacob had 22,186 and Jacopo had 5.

Side by side

  Jacob Jacopo
Total US births 990,53211
Most in one year 36,0916
Babies in 2025 6,152under 5
Estimated living today 929,00011
Median age today 2524
Peak year 19982001
Best rank 2nd boys9,243rd boys
Rank in 2025 43rdunranked
First recorded 18802001
Girls / boys 2,305 / 988,2270 / 11

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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Jacob Jacopo
England and Wales 95,01251
Italy 35041,786
France 4,00525
Poland 1,28436
Switzerland 324219

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: Jacob and Jacopo.