Jacob

Jacob is a masculine given name of Hebrew origin, derived from Ya'akov, commonly interpreted as “he who supplants” or “holder of the heel.” In the Hebrew Bible, Jacob is the son of Isaac and Rebekah and the twin of Esau. He is later renamed Israel after wrestling with an angel, and he becomes the patriarch of the twelve tribes of Israel. His twelve sons—Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin—found the tribes that shape Israelite history.

The name is widely used across many cultures and has numerous variations. Examples include Jakob (German, Dutch, and Scandinavian), Jakub (Czech/Slovak), Jacques (French), Giacomo (Italian), Ya’akov (Hebrew), and Yakov (Russian). In scholarly Latin, it appears as Iacobus. The English form James is derived from the same root.

Beyond the biblical figure, Jacob remains a common given name in the modern world, and it also occurs as a surname in some families, with Jacobs being a frequent variant in Dutch and Jewish communities.

Notable people with the given name include Jacob Grimm, the 19th-century German philologist and folklorist, and Jacob Zuma, the South African politician and former president. The name’s enduring presence in literature, religion, and popular culture contributes to its continued usage in many languages today.