Jacy
Masculine
Jacy is given to both — 756 boys and 3,416 girls since 1880. See Jacy as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Jacy is recorded for boys and girls alike and has at least three plausible sources. One of them is a word for the moon in a language that was spoken along the Brazilian coast when the Portuguese arrived.
How old is the name Jacy?
Jacy first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Jacy alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 700 people named Jacy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jacy most popular?
Jacy peaked in 1977, reaching #2008 nationally. See the whole 1977 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Jacy
Tupi was the lingua franca of coastal Brazil for two centuries after contact, used by settlers and missionaries as well as by the people whose language it was, and it left a very large mark on Brazilian Portuguese. Thousands of place names come from it, along with the ordinary words for a great many plants and animals, and a set of given names that Brazilians still use without necessarily knowing their source. Jaci is one of those: the moon, often personified in the stories as female. The language itself declined sharply, though descendants of it are still spoken in the Amazon, and its vocabulary is all over the map of a country of two hundred million people.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Tupi word for the moon is a real and documented source for a Brazilian name of this shape. An American Jacy may equally be built from initials or from Jacinta or Jason, and the record does not choose.
Pronouncing Jacy
JAY-see
Two syllables with the stress in front. In Portuguese the name is closer to zhah-SEE, with the weight at the end.
Nicknames for Jacy
Limited
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 200028 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2008reached in 1977
- Change vs 2023
- +33.3%8 in 2024, from 6
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.
Jacy in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jaci in Portuguese — related form
Jacys among us
people named Jacy are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Jacy sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables: quick to write and easy to learn.
- It is recorded for boys and for girls, so it does not force a reading on anyone.
- It is read correctly at first sight by nearly everybody in English.
- Jacey, Jaycee and Jaci are all in the record, so the spelling will be checked back with you.
- The English and Portuguese readings are quite different, so the name travels less cleanly than it looks.
- No origin is documented for the American name, so the meaning question has three candidates and no answer.
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Jacy
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Jacys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Jacy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jacy in 2025?
- Jacy is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Jacy with classmates?
- Jacy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More J names
The most-given names starting with J, all years combined.
James#6 · John#23 · Joseph#29 · Joshua#66 · Jason#165 · Jacob#43 · Jeffrey#552 · Jonathan#89
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jacy? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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