Yakov
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ) Yaakov: männl. Vom., neuhe bräische Form von
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Yakov is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Qatar it is the 6th most common given name.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 199K(inferred from the name graph)
- ILIsrael≈1 in 156as יעקב
- QAQatar≈1 in 221as יעקב
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Yakov itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #901 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 227 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 199K (inferred from the name graph)
805,730 named Jacob, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled יעקב in IL Israel, MA Morocco, QA Qatar and 1 more, Яков in RU Russia and Jakov in SI Slovenia.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
) Yaakov: männl. Vom., neuhe bräische Form von
Sources 1
- DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yakov 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 805,730as Jacob | 1 in 413 | 805K | Yakov | 227 |
| IL Israel | #7 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 156 | 10K | יעקב | 104 |
| RU Russia | #149 | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.2K | #61 | Яков | 179 |
| RO Romania | #51 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 531 | — | יעקב | 7 |
| MA Morocco | #66 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | יעקב | 5 |
| DK Denmark | — | 20,316as Jacob | 1 in 289 | 20K | — | 4 |
| QA Qatar | #6 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 221 | — | יעקב | 1 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 6,201as Jakob | 1 in 339 | 6.3K | Jakov | 6 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 199K | 1.5K | Yakov | 47 |
805,730 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020, counting the spelling jacob. 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; CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SURS — resident population given names; stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Yakov is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Jewish: the modern Hebrew form of JACOB . This is also the form of the name in Russian. Variant: Jewish: Yaakov. Pet forms: Jewish: Yankel (Yiddish). Russian: Yasha. Feminine form: Jewish: Yakova .
as a word
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)
- Yakov Yurovskyb. 1878RUChief executioner of Tsar Nicholas II (1878–1938)
- Yakov Protazanovb. 1881RURussian film director and screenwriter (1881–1945)
- Yakov Perelmanb. 1882PLRussian science writer (1882–1942)
- Yakov Sverdlovb. 1885RUSoviet politician
- Jascha Horensteinb. 1898ATnot in their usual nameAmerican conductor
- Yakov Dzhugashvilib. 1907GEfirst child of Josef Stalin (1907–1943)
- Yakov Flierb. 1912RURussian musician (1912–1977)
- Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovichb. 1914RUSoviet physicist, physical chemist and cosmologist (1914-1987)
- Yakov G. Sinaib. 1935RURussian-American mathematician
- Yakov Eliashbergb. 1946RURussian-American mathematician
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 39 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4.4K | #4,336 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 153 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 7 | #4,336 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- What are other forms of the name Yakov?
- In the etymology graph, James, Jaime and Jacob are forms of the same name in other languages; Yasha is a recorded short or pet form.
- What does the name Yakov mean?
- Recorded meaning: ) Yaakov: männl. Vom., neuhe bräische Form von
- In which country does Yakov have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 806 thousand people named Jacob, more than in any other country we hold.
- Is Yakov a male or female name?
- Yakov 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.
- How common is the name Yakov?
- In the United States, the national register counted 805,730 people named Jacob in 2020, about 1 in 413 residents.
- How common is Yakov compared with other names?
- In Qatar, Yakov is the 6th most common given name of 12,797 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Yakov?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/yakovThe 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, “Yakov” — the 6th most common given name in Qatar. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.