Jacek
Masculine · “hyacinth”
Jacek is Polish, and it hides a flower. Behind it stands Hyacinth — the bloom, and before the bloom a figure out of Greek myth — carried into Poland by the church in Latin, then worn down by Polish mouths until nothing of the original sound was left. Few names travel that far and end up looking so completely at home.
How old is the name Jacek?
Jacek first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Jacek alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 500 people named Jacek are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jacek most popular?
Jacek peaked in 2013, reaching #2998 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 9,010 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Hyakinthos to Jacek
The story of Jacek
Greek myth gives Hyakinthos as a young man loved by Apollo and killed by a discus, with the flower springing from where he fell. Latin took the name as Hyacinthus, the church carried it east, and Polish rendered it Jacenty, then shortened that to Jacek. What fixed it in Poland was a thirteenth-century Dominican friar, Jacek Odrowąż, who carried the order's preaching north and east and whose name has been given to Polish boys ever since. In Spanish and Portuguese the same name kept a shape closer to the Latin and stayed male there too — Jacinto, which surprises English speakers who file hyacinth under women's names.
Meaning
hyacinth
The chain from Hyacinthus to Jacek is not in doubt. What the Greek word itself meant is another matter: Hyakinthos is pre-Greek, borrowed from a language spoken in the Aegean before Greek arrived, and its own meaning is not recoverable. So the name means the flower, and the flower means something nobody can now read.
How the name formed
- Hyakinthos
- Hyacinthus
- Jacenty
- Jacek
Related forms: Jacinto · Jacinto · Giacinto · Hyacinthe · Hyacinthus · Hyacinth
Pronouncing Jacek
YAH-tsek
Polish j is the English y, and Polish c is ts, as in cats. Two syllables, stress on the first. English speakers reading it cold will say JAY-sek, which is the wrong sound for both consonants and is what a child will spend a lifetime gently correcting.
Nicknames for Jacek
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1965
- Most boys named
- 201337 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2998reached in 2013
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%5 in 2025, from 5
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Jacek in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jacinto in Spanish — same name
- Jacinto in Portuguese — same name
- Giacinto in Italian — same name
- Hyacinthe in French — same name
- Hyacinthus in Latin — same name
- Hyacinth in English — same name
Jaceks among us
people named Jacek are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Jacek
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Artavious test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jacek's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Artavious climbed just as high around 1992, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Artavious's path sketches the road Jacek is walking now.
Jacek sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Jacek beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jacek in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Five letters, two syllables, and completely standard in Poland — no explanation is needed there at all.
- The line back through Latin to Greek is documented and unusually long for a name this compact.
- Jack works as an English everyday form without any change to the paperwork.
- Outside Polish families nobody reads it correctly on sight, and neither consonant behaves the way an English reader expects.
- The accented letter in the affectionate form will not survive American forms and databases.
- It is easily confused with Jarek, Marek and Jaco in speech, which multiplies the corrections.
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What they receive
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Jacek
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jaceks are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Jacek are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jacek in 2025?
- Jacek ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jacek?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Jacek — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jacek with classmates?
- Jacek will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jacek
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jacek? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Jacek and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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