Isaac

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: From Hebrew male personal name Yitschak, literally ‘he laughs’, probably with the sense ‘may God smile on him’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/aɪzək/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Isaac is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Costa Rica it is the 71st most common given name.

rarermore common
  • CRCosta Rica1 in 963(measured from records)
  • USUnited States1 in 1.4K
  • ESSpain1 in 1.7K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

242,217 people, 2020

Sources
439 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 635 (inferred from the name graph)

Ecuador

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From Hebrew male personal name Yitschak, literally ‘he laughs’, probably with the sense ‘may God smile on him’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Isaac is read(measured from records)

Isaac is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English41%

    From Hebrew male personal name Yitschak, literally ‘he laughs’, probably with the sense ‘may God smile on him’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

    Hebrew name meaning 'he may laugh'; rare in Ireland, with recorded use in the Glinny family of Co. Down.

    as a nameIrish first names

    from Hebrew Isaac, from a root meaning ‘laugh’; first attested Isac 1086 DB.

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • Spanish31%

    Hebrew Yishaq, 'he laughs' or 'laughter'; name linked to Abraham and Sarah's incredulous laughter.

    as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios

  • Swahili7.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Isaac in Swahili.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Isaac counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Isaac is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—242,2171 in 1.4K242KIsaac439
BR Brazil#57185,8621 in 2.5K86KIsaac173
ZA South Africa—≈61,000 est.≈1 in 924—Isaac34
CD Congo - Kinshasa#117≈49,000 est.≈1 in 2.1K—Isaac20
ES Spain#25229,0971 in 1.7K29KIsaac195
EC Ecuador—26,6341 in 63527KIsaac70
CR Costa Rica#715,2951 in 9635.3KIsaac92

242,217 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INEC — civil registry names; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Isaac is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name98 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Hindi

    Also written Ισαακ, Isaak, Isa-Ac, Isa'Ac, Isaäc

  • Swahili given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Kenya, Nigeria, United States, Zambia

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written Isa'Ac

  • a separate name6 spellings in the group

    Also written Isaäc, Isaác, Isáac, Isäac, Isaa͏̈c

  • Indonesian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, United States, Indonesia, Nigeria

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Ïsaac, Isååc

  • Lao given name24 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, United States, Thailand, Peru

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Issac, Isac, ไอแซค, อิสอัค, ไอแซ็ค

  • Polish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, United Kingdom, Spain

    Also written Isaąc, Ìsààc, Isàãç

121 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Isaac is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • A name of Hebrew origin meaning 'he will laugh', symbolizing the joy and laughter his birth brought to his aged parents.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • In French, From Hebrew Yiṣḥaq, ‘he laughs / God has laughed’.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

500100015002000Isaac the Syrian, b. 640Isaac Barrow, b. 1630Isaac Newton, b. 1642Isaac Albéniz, b. 1860Isidor Isaac Rabi, b. 1898Isaac Bashevis Singer, b. 1903Isaac Asimov, b. 1920Isaac Hayes, b. 1942Isaac Herzog, b. 1960Yacouba Isaac Zida, b. 1965

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them(machine-generated)

InformalHi Isaac,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 159 sources across 84 countries.

Official registers attesting Isaac
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020242K#231
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202286K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—85K#361
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—29K#261
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—28K#115
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—27K#1,165
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names202427K#92
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)202024K—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20256K—
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—5.3K#137
EC EcuadorINEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024)2024782—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—741#361

Reference works 9

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

Is Isaac a male or female name?
Isaac is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Isaac mean, and where does it come from?
From Hebrew male personal name Yitschak, literally ‘he laughs’, probably with the sense ‘may God smile on him’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Isaac have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 242 thousand people named Isaac, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled isaac.
Where is Isaac most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Isaac is densest in Ecuador — about 1 in 635 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
What are other forms of the name Isaac?
In the etymology graph, Issac, Isak and Isac are forms of the same name in other languages; Ike is a recorded short or pet form.
How do you pronounce Isaac?
A machine transcription gives /aɪzək/ (IPA) for English.
How common is the name Isaac?
In the United States, the national register counted 242,217 people named Isaac in 2020, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
How common is Isaac compared with other names?
In Costa Rica, Isaac is the 71st most common given name of 15,284 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Isaac?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/isaac

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Isaac” — the 71st most common given name in Costa Rica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Isaac parses inside a full name →