Jack
Of English origin meaning "God is gracious" or "supplanter".
Roughly 432,820 people in the United States go by the first name Jack, which ranks #15 nationally when sorted by estimated living bearers. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jack today is around 38 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jack births was 1927 (12,884 babies). In terms of living bearers, it sits close to Hannah (432,506).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jack. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Jack with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Jack is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 2,728 girls registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
433K
~ 1 in 792 Americans
Peak year
1927
12,884 babies that year
Average age
38
years old
2024 SSA rank
#15
Tracked since 1880
Census
Jack in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 415,672 people with the first name Jack, which placed it at #112 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#112
National first-name rank
People counted
416K
415,672 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
137.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jack
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jack is White at 87.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.7%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Jack described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Jack at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.1% · 361,901
- Hispanic or Latino4.7% · 19,571
- Two or more races3.3% · 13,825
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 10,121
- Black or African American1.9% · 8,007
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2,247
Gender
Gender distribution for Jack
Out of the 750,859 babies given the name Jack since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Jack as a male name
- Ranked #15 in 2024
- 8,434 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1927 (12,802 births)
Jack as a female name
- Ranked #11,479 in 2024
- 8 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1928 (96 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jack appears almost entirely male. Of the 415,678 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Jack: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jack from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 116,741 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 1920s peak, Jack remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jack by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Jack during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 2,684 | 5 | 2,689 |
| 1890s | 4,635 | 24 | 4,659 |
| 1900s | 9,222 | 47 | 9,269 |
| 1910s | 49,526 | 311 | 49,837 |
| 1920s | 115,983 | 758 | 116,741 |
| 1930s | 96,397 | 477 | 96,874 |
| 1940s | 73,920 | 210 | 74,130 |
| 1950s | 62,385 | 148 | 62,533 |
| 1960s | 35,590 | 147 | 35,737 |
| 1970s | 18,570 | 132 | 18,702 |
| 1980s | 15,942 | 116 | 16,058 |
| 1990s | 37,502 | 60 | 37,562 |
| 2000s | 95,508 | 149 | 95,657 |
| 2010s | 85,688 | 86 | 85,774 |
| 2020s | 44,579 | 58 | 44,637 |
Geography
Where Jacks live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Jack, while Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 14,341 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jack
The name Jack is derived from the Hebrew name Yaakov, meaning "supplanter" or "one who follows". The name was brought to Britain by the Normans after their conquest in 1066 and the Old French diminutive "Jacquet" evolved into the modern Jack. The name became extremely popular in medieval England, particularly after the Norman invasion.
In ancient texts, Jacob is featured prominently in the Book of Genesis as one of the patriarchs of the Israelites, and the son of Isaac and Rebecca. His name was changed to Israel by God after he wrestled with an angel. The name Jack is derived from this biblical name.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Jack is in the medieval mystery plays and folk tales featuring a character named Jack, such as "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer". These stories likely originated in the 16th century and helped popularize the name.
Famous historical figures named Jack include Jack Cade (1420-1450), an English rebel leader during the Hundred Years' War, and Jack Sheppard (1702-1724), a notorious English burglar and escape artist. Jack Churchill (1906-1996) was a British army officer who fought in World War II and was known for carrying a sword and bagpipes into battle.
In literature, Jack Worthing is a central character in Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895), and Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author known for novels such as "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang". Jack Nicholson (born 1937) is an acclaimed American actor who has starred in films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Shining".
Notable bearers
Famous people named Jack
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Jack Arnold
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Jack Baran
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Jack Benny
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Jack Billingham
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Jack Black
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Jack Cardiff
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Jack Clayton
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Jack Conway
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Jack Dempsey
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Jack Donohue
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Jack Elam
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Jack Haley
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Jack Ham
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Jack Hill
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Jack Hoxie
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Jack Kingston
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Jack Klugman
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Jack Lambert
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Jack Lemmon
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Jack Lord
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Jack Mckeon
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Jack Mulhall
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Jack Nicholson
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Jack Nicklaus
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Jack Oconnell
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Jack Osbourne
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Jack Reed
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Jack Sholder
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Jack Soo
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Jack Starrett
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Jack Tatum
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Jack Webb
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Jack Wilson
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Jack Youngblood
People
Jack + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jack as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with J
Other first names starting with J with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Jack: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jack?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 432,820 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jack going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 792 US residents.
Is Jack a common name?
We classify Jack as "Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 750,859 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jack most popular?
The single biggest year for Jack was 1927, when 12,884 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jack is about 38 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jack in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 415,672 people with the name Jack, or 137.63 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #112 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Jack in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Jack?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jack appears almost entirely male. Of the 415,678 people counted with this name, 99.7% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Jack?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jack is White at 87.1%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.7%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Jack most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jack in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.1% (361,901 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Jack in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jack a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Jack in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Jack still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jack in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Jack can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Jack?
Find out how many people have the name Jack on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.