Jake
Meaning
"holder of the heel" by tradition, as Jacob's medieval short form gone independent; English has used it on its own since the Middle Ages, and it boomed alongside Jacob's 1990s-2000s reign. Plainspoken, durable, all-weather
The story
Jake began as the plainspoken pet form of Jacob, the Hebrew name traditionally translated as supplanter, and Americans have been putting it on birth certificates for well over a century. By the 1920s it was so familiar that everything's jake was slang for all is well. It faded to a murmur by the 1960s, the fate of many grandpa names, then staged one of the great comebacks: Jake climbed through the 1980s and 1990s and hit its peak in the 2000s, exactly the years Jacob sat at number one among American boys, and it is hard not to notice the two rising together. Since then it has drifted down only gently. Jake remains what it has always been, the shirtsleeves version of a patriarch's name: friendly, sturdy, and impossible to mispronounce.
The formal names behind Jake
Jake is an established short form of this name.
Jacob · Hebrew origin · traditionally "holder of the heel" or "supplanter," from the Hebrew Ya'aqov, the patriarch who wrestled the angel and fathered the twelve tribes; a Jewish and Puritan staple that ruled the US boys' charts for over a decade around the 2000s. Jake comes free
Jake around the world
One shared root links 18 names across 5 languages.
Shared root: from Hebrew Ya'aqov, traditionally "holder of the heel, supplanter"; Late Latin split it into Jacobus and Iacomus, giving Europe both Jacob and James
The constellation
11 more branches of this family
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Jake peaked in the 2000s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
176 people · the #27,790 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 14
Among people named Jake living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 56 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Jake
Most people given the name Jake in the United States are teenagers or young adults today.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Jake deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Jake truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Jake fits with your family’s names and surname.
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