The number is 274,077. That is how many baby boys were named Jacob in the United States between 2000 and 2009, according to the Social Security Administration, and it was enough to take the top spot for the decade. That helps explain why a playground, a Little League roster or a classroom in those years could seem to hold a Jacob or two.
The SSA’s tally covers 21,277,426 boys born in the decade, drawn from a 100 percent sample of Social Security card applications. Ten names accounted for a remarkable share of them, and the list holds a few surprises for anyone who remembers the 1990s version.
The Top Five: Jacob Leads a Familiar Crowd
The SSA’s top names of the 2000s page lists the countdown this way. 1. Jacob topped the chart with 274,077, ahead of 2. Michael at 250,715 by 23,362 boys. 3. Joshua followed with 232,053, then 4. Matthew with 221,631 and 5. Daniel with 203,975. Name Almanac, which draws on the SSA’s national baby-name file, puts it simply: the most given names of the 2000s were Emily and Jacob.
Jacob’s win has a neat backstory. On the 1990s page, Jacob ranked fifth with 298,415 boys, so the name actually lost 24,338 babies from decade to decade and still climbed to number one, because the names ahead of it fell faster. AARP’s history of baby names counts Jacob among the names that entered the boys’ pantheon as the new millennium began. Readers curious about how boys’ names rise and fall can see the longer view in the 1950s’ top 10 boys’ names and which still rank in the 2020s, and the big-screen side of the decade shows up in best kids movies based on books.
Names Six Through Ten: Ethan and William Break In
6. Christopher came in with 203,372, and 7. Andrew followed with 202,588. 8. Ethan collected 201,835, 9. Joseph picked up 194,962, and 10. William closed the list with 194,415. The gaps in the lower half were tiny: fewer than 800 boys separated Christopher from Andrew, and about 750 separated Andrew from Ethan. A movie marathon is a good way to pass the time with a roll call that long, and longest movies of all time has the contenders.
Together the ten names account for 2,179,623 boys. A calculation from the SSA’s own totals puts that at about 10 percent of every boy born in the 2000s, or roughly one in ten. Anyone looking at the other side of the nursery can compare it with 10 girl names nearly every 1980s classroom had, and the era’s playlists live on in the 15 best songs ever written.
What Changed Since the 1990s
The SSA’s top names of the 1990s page shows Michael on top with 462,466, nearly double his 2000s count of 250,715. Christopher fell from second with 360,287 to sixth, and Matthew slipped from third with 351,682 to fourth. Two names from the 1990s top ten, Nicholas with 275,329 and Tyler with 262,320, dropped out entirely, and Ethan and William moved in.
A few names held steady. Andrew was seventh in both decades, Joshua went from fourth to third, and Daniel moved up from eighth to fifth. Michael was the only name to place in the top two for both decades. Those boys are grown men now, and men born in these 4 months make loyal husbands is a fun read for anyone curious about the Jacobs and Michaels in their lives. Names do not predict talent, but fans of talent can compare notes in celebs who excel at their hobbies so much they could be famous for that instead. Names tied to an even earlier birth year look far different, as the 10 most popular baby names of 1926 shows.
The Numbers Behind the Names
The SSA’s figures also show how concentrated the 2000s were. Jacob’s 274,077 works out to about 1.29 percent of the boys in the sample, roughly one in 78. In the 1990s, Michael’s 462,466 came to about 2.25 percent of the 20,556,015 boys counted, or roughly one in 44. The top name lost a lot of its grip from one decade to the next.
Adding up the 1990s boys’ top ten gives 3,145,743 boys, close to 15 percent of the decade’s total, against 10 percent for the 2000s ten. In other words, parents were spreading their choices around more by the 2000s, even while the same classic names kept returning to the chart.
The decade-to-decade gap at the top is striking. Joseph, tenth in the 1990s with 260,751, outdrew the 2000s runner-up Michael at 250,715, even though the SSA counted 721,411 more boys in the 2000s sample than in the 1990s. Ethan’s 201,835 in the 2000s would not have cracked the 1990s top ten at all, since the tenth-place count then was 260,751. A name that only scraped into the 1990s top ten would have beaten the runner-up of the 2000s.
The SSA cannot say why parents chose what they did, and neither can a raw count. What the numbers do show is the shape of a decade: a handful of familiar names, a few new arrivals, and little room for anything unusual at the top. For anyone who grew up in those years, the list reads like a school yearbook, and the same ten names are likely to ring a bell at any reunion.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Tom Reynolds from Melbourne, Australia – CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons
