Isaac
About 332,292 American babies have been named Isaac since 1880, most of them around 2007. In 2025 it ranked 47th. About 300,000 Isaacs are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 17.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Isaac boys named Isaac
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 332,292
- Estimated living today
- 300,000
- Median age today
- 17
- Peak year
- 2007
- Best rank
- 41st
- Rank in 2025
- 47th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 784 / 331,508
How old the living Isaacs are
born that year still alive today
Of the 332,292 babies given the name since 1880, about 300,000 are alive — 90 in every hundred. Roughly 153,000 of them are children and 7,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2008 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Hebrew
From Middle English Ysaac, from Latin Isaac, from Ancient Greek Ἰσαάκ, from Hebrew יצחק. Explained in Genesis as referring to his mother Sarah’s laughing when she was told she would have a son at her old age. The verb is masculine, however, perhaps due to its use as a boy’s name.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Isaacs
- Isaac Newton (1643–1727)English mathematician and physicist
- Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)American writer and biochemist
- Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991)Polish-American writer
- Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898–1988)American physicist
- Isaac Herzog (born 1960)President of Israel since 2021
- Isaac Shamir (1915–2012)7th Prime Minister of Israel
- Oscar Isaac (born 1979)Guatemalan-American actor
- Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909)Spanish composer
People named Isaac with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Isaac is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Isaac is most concentrated in Nevada (2.2×), New Mexico (2.1×), Utah (2.1×), Alaska (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2007
The most popular boys’ names the year Isaac peaked:
Isaac elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Isaac | 50,460 | 20th |
| France boys | Isaac +4 spellings | 29,555 | 11th |
| Spain boys | Isaac | 11,056 | 79th |
| New Zealand boys | Isaac | 4,770 | 17th |
| Belgium boys | Isaac | 2,107 | 34th |
| Scotland boys | Isaac | 1,976 | 45th |
| Ireland boys | Isaac | 1,671 | 77th |
| Northern Ireland boys | Isaac | 1,441 | 25th |
| Switzerland boys | Isaac | 1,039 | 50th |
| Italy boys | Isaac | 568 | — |
| Norway boys | Isaac | 538 | 163rd |
| France girls | Isaac | 50 | 2,573rd |
| Poland boys | Isaac | 37 birth registrations | 404th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Isaac: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Isaac | 245 | 0.020% | 209th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Isaac | 780 | 0.179% | 4th |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Isaac | 14 | 0.021% | 63rd |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Isaac is most concentrated in Geneva, where 0.19% of children were given it – 191 of them.
Isaac: rank by region
In 2025, Isaac was given 5 times or more in 3 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Isaac | 87 | 65 |
| Wallonia | Isaac | 33 | 75 |
| Brussels | Isaac | 15 | 35 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Isaac appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (15th), Province of Flemish Brabant (21st), Province of Hainaut (21st), Province of Liège (35th), Province of Namur (39th), Province of Luxembourg (46th), Province of Walloon Brabant (64th), Province of East Flanders (86th), Province of Antwerp (127th) and Province of West Flanders (138th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Isaac by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 28 | 342nd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Isaac among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Isaac | 125 | 240 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Isaac lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 29,097 men called Isaac were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Girona | Isaac | 989 | 2.375 | 80 |
| Ourense | Isaac | 280 | 1.909 | 90 |
| Tarragona | Isaac | 813 | 1.855 | 102 |
| León | Isaac | 402 | 1.843 | 91 |
| Barcelona | Isaac | 5,081 | 1.742 | 102 |
| Asturias | Isaac | 800 | 1.651 | 106 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Isaac against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.