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Yakelin vs Yakov

American parents have registered 3,353 Yakovs since 1880, against 562 Yakelins. Yakov is still ahead, with 153 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Yakelin against Yakov, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Yakelin Yakov

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Yakov has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1953 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2000, when Yakelin had 37 and Yakov had 46.

Side by side

  Yakelin Yakov
Total US births 5623,353
Most in one year 37172
Babies in 2025 8153
Estimated living today 5603,300
Median age today 1913
Peak year 20002024
Best rank 3,527th girls1,193rd boys
Rank in 2025 10,917th1,281st
First recorded 19911953
Girls / boys 562 / 00 / 3,353

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Yakelins alive today are over 19; half the Yakovs are over 13. That is 6 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Yakelin and Yakov.