Jakobe
Masculine · “from Hebrew Ya'aqov”
Jakobe is a recent American shaping of one of the oldest names still in daily use: Jacob, the Hebrew Ya'aqov, carried west through Greek and Latin into nearly every European language. The added -e gives it a third syllable and a soft landing, and it arrives with two ready-made short forms, Jake and Kobe, that need no explaining to anyone.
How old is the name Jakobe?
Jakobe first appears in US birth records in 1996 — 29 years ago. The typical Jakobe alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 4,800 people named Jakobe are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jakobe most popular?
Jakobe peaked in 2003, reaching #816 nationally. Today it ranks #1459, 643 places below that high. See the whole 2003 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ya'aqov to Jakobe
The story of Jakobe
The root name is Ya'aqov, borne by one of the patriarchs of Genesis, and it traveled by translation: Iakobos in the Greek of the New Testament, Iacobus in Latin, then splitting across Europe into Jacob, Jakob, Jacques, Giacomo, Jakub and dozens more. English-speaking use of Jacob has been continuous for centuries, which is why the sound is instantly legible even in an unfamiliar spelling. Jakobe itself is a modern American form, part of a broad late-twentieth-century pattern of respelling well-worn names with an added vowel — a cousin to Jacoby and Jacobi. Its concentration in the Southeast and Texas fits that pattern of recent, regionally clustered coinage rather than any long documented line.
Meaningscholars disagree
from Hebrew Ya'aqov, traditionally read as "heel-holder" or "supplanter"
The Book of Genesis links the name to the Hebrew word for heel, 'aqev, from the account of Jacob's birth, and that reading gave rise to the traditional gloss "supplanter". Semitic scholars have long argued instead for an original theophoric form meaning roughly "may God protect". Both readings are serious and both are old.
How the name formed
- Ya'aqov
- Iakobos
- Iacobus
- Jacob
- Jakobe
Related forms: Jacob · Jakob · Ya'aqov · Jacobo · Jakub · Giacomo
Pronouncing Jakobe
JAY-koh-bee
Three syllables with the stress up front is the usual American reading. Some families say juh-KOH-bee, and a few treat the final -e as silent, giving simply JAY-kob. Expect to state your preference more than once.
Nicknames for Jakobe
High
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
- 1996
- Most boys named
- 2020273 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #816reached in 2003
- Change vs 2024
- −18.7%122 in 2025, from 150
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.
Jakobe in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jacob in English — same name
- Jakob in German / Scandinavian — spelling variant
- Ya'aqov in Hebrew — transliteration
- Jacobo in Spanish — same name
- Jakub in Polish / Czech — same name
- Giacomo in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: North Carolina, Texas, Florida.
Jakobes among us
people named Jakobe are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 14,001 born in 2025 was named Jakobe
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 Burnell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jakobe's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Burnell climbed just as high around 1920, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Burnell's path sketches the road Jakobe is walking now.
Jakobe 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
Where Jakobe is headed
Jakobe should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Jakobe beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jakobe in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Built on Jacob, a name with an unbroken written record stretching back through Latin, Greek and Hebrew — the root is recognizable everywhere.
- Two established short forms, Jake and Kobe, both already familiar as names on their own.
- The Jacob family exists in nearly every European language, so relatives abroad will have a local equivalent to hand.
- Rare enough in practice that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate, while never sounding invented.
- The spelling will be corrected all his life. Jacoby, Jacobi and plain Jacob are all more familiar, and forms filled in by other people will often come back wrong.
- The pronunciation is genuinely unsettled — JAY-koh-bee, juh-KOH-bee, or two syllables. That is worth deciding firmly before the birth certificate, since whichever you choose you will be repeating it.
- In German-speaking Europe, Jakobe has historical use as a feminine form of Jakob. It has no bearing on American use, where records show it as a boy's name, but it can surface in older European sources.
- As a modern respelling, it has no deep paper trail of its own. Everything venerable about it is inherited from Jacob — which is a great deal, but worth knowing rather than assuming.
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What they receive
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Jakobe
Masculine · #1459 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jakobes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,800 people named Jakobe are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Jakobe in 2025?
- Jakobe ranks #1459 among US boy names in 2025, with 122 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jakobe?
- About 1 in every 14,001 US boys born in 2025 was named Jakobe — 122 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jakobe with classmates?
- Jakobe will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jakobe
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leander#1459 · Giuseppe#1459 · Luther#1459 · Ross#1459 · Jai#1459 · Jaxen#1459 · Monte#1466 · Sire#1466
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jakobe? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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