Jobe
A masculine name of Hebrew origin meaning "persecuted" or "supplanter".
Name Census estimates that about 1,094 living Americans carry the first name Jobe. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Jobe today is around 29 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Jobe births was 2003 (41 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Jobe. 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 Jobe with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.1K
~ 1 in 313,304 Americans
Peak year
2003
41 babies that year
Average age
29
years old
2024 SSA rank
#7,004
Tracked since 1882
Census
Jobe in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,002 people with the first name Jobe, which placed it at #12,418 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
#12,418
National first-name rank
People counted
1.0K
1,002 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
63.4% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Jobe
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jobe is White at 63.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.2%) and Black (10.6%). 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 Jobe 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 Jobe at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White63.4% · 635
- Hispanic or Latino13.2% · 132
- Black or African American10.6% · 106
- Two or more races5.9% · 59
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.6% · 46
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.4% · 24
Popularity
Jobe: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Jobe from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 309 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Jobe 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 Jobe during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Jobes live
The SSA's state-level files cover 3 states and territories. Texas, California, Missouri recorded the most babies named Jobe, while Missouri, California, Texas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 17 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Jobe
The given name Jobe has its origins in the biblical name Job, which is derived from the Hebrew name Iyyov. The name Job appears in the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible, which is believed to have been written between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE. The story of Job is about a righteous man who endures immense suffering and tests of faith.
The name Job is thought to come from the Hebrew root 'ayab, meaning "to be hostile to" or "to be hostile with". Some scholars interpret the name as meaning "the persecuted one" or "the one who turns back to God". The spelling variation Jobe emerged as an Anglicized form of the name.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Jobe was Jobe Lewis, an English clergyman and writer who lived from 1594 to 1675. He was known for his work "A Treatise of the Perpetual Visibility and Succession of the True Church in All Ages".
Another notable figure was Jobe Clements, an American pioneer and frontiersman who lived from 1776 to 1853. He was one of the early settlers in the Ohio River Valley and played a role in the settlement of Kentucky and Indiana.
In the 19th century, Jobe Borron (1817-1890) was a prominent American farmer and politician from Ohio. He served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives and was involved in the agricultural community.
Jobe Franklin (1846-1916) was an American politician and jurist from Missouri. He served as a judge in the Missouri Court of Appeals and was involved in various political organizations.
More recently, Jobe Fortner (1920-2005) was an American baseball player who played in the Major League Baseball (MLB) for teams like the St. Louis Browns and the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1940s and 1950s.
People
Jobe + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Jobe 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
Jobe: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Jobe?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,094 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Jobe 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 313,304 US residents.
Is Jobe a common name?
We classify Jobe as "Rare". It ranks above 90.7% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,310 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Jobe most popular?
The single biggest year for Jobe was 2003, when 41 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Jobe is about 29 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Jobe in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,002 people with the name Jobe, or 0.33 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,418 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 Jobe 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 Jobe?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Jobe leans strongly male. 972 people counted with this name were male (97.1%), compared with 29 female bearers (2.9%). 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 Jobe?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Jobe is White at 63.4%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (13.2%) and Black (10.6%). 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 Jobe most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Jobe in the 2020 Census, accounting for 63.4% (635 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 Jobe in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Jobe a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Jobe 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 Jobe still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Jobe 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 Jobe 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 share the name Jobe?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.