Isaac: Meaning of Baby Name Isaac

About the Name Isaac

Isaac descends from the Hebrew Yitzhak, derived from the verb tzachak (to laugh). The Genesis account explains the name with a triple etymology: when God promises Abraham (then 99 years old) that his wife Sarah (then 89) will bear a son, both Abraham and Sarah laugh in disbelief; when the son is born, Sarah says, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me." The name itself can be glossed as "he laughs," "she laughs," or "laughter."

The biblical Isaac is the second of the three patriarchs of Genesis (after Abraham, before Jacob), and his story — the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah, his marriage to Rebekah, his blind blessing of Jacob over Esau — is among the most theologically and artistically influential narratives in the Hebrew Bible, recurring across Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions (where he is the prophet Ishaq). Notable later bearers include physicist Isaac Newton (1643–1727), who formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation; science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov (the Foundation series); and 16th-century Jewish-Spanish philosopher Isaac Abrabanel.

Isaac's American climb began in the 1990s and pushed it into the US top 30 by 2009. The name's appeal is its biblical weight combined with tonal accessibility — two soft syllables, instantly readable, religiously universal across the Abrahamic traditions, and warm rather than heavy. Common nicknames Ike, Zac, and the rare Isa each carry distinct registers; the German variant Isaak is occasionally used, and the Arabic Ishaq is widespread in Muslim-naming traditions. The Spanish form is Isaac (identical), the French Isaac (also identical), the Italian Isacco, and the Russian Isaak.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.

Quick Facts About Isaac

1,531

Hebrew baby names in our dictionary

695

Hebrew male names

77

5-letter I-names in our dictionary

157

I-male names total

1880–2025

years of US SSA records (45 total)

254,166

total US births named Isaac (all years)

US Popularity History (1880–2025)

➖ Steady: Isaac slipped 8 places in the US boys ranking over the last 5 years (#39 in 2020 → #47 in 2025).

Annual US births named Isaac by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2007 with 10,274 boys named Isaac (boy rank #41 that year).

Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #47 for boys (5,953 US births). That's 6 places below its 2007 peak.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.

Where in the US Is Isaac Most Popular?

Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Isaac the strongest states are California, Nebraska, Washington.

Strongest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	California	#27	10,425
2	Nebraska	#27	502
3	Washington	#29	1,669
4	Nevada	#29	681
5	Oregon	#31	830
6	Michigan	#31	2,057
7	Minnesota	#32	1,243
8	Maryland	#32	1,257
9	Arizona	#33	1,611
10	Texas	#34	7,723

Weakest boys-name states

#	State	Avg rank	Births
1	Mississippi	#98	323
2	Louisiana	#67	704
3	South Carolina	#65	719
4	Maine	#65	191
5	New Hampshire	#63	211
6	Kentucky	#61	745
7	Montana	#61	164
8	West Virginia	#60	313
9	Alabama	#59	767
10	Alaska	#58	142

Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Isaac in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.

Variant Forms

Name	Meaning	Gender	Origin
Ike	Variant Of Hebrew Isaac Laughter.	Male	Hebrew
Isa	Rainbow	Female	Chamoru
Issa	Swahili Name Meaning "God Is Our Salvation."	Female	African
Zack	Variant Of Zachariah And Zachary.	Male	English
Zak	Variant Of Zachariah And Zachary.	Male	English

Famous People Named Isaac

5 notable figures from history and culture who share the name Isaac.

Isaac Albeniz was a great musician who revived Spanish music and composed many works based on Spanish folk music.
Isaac Asimov — Novelist (1920)
Isaac Bashevis Singer — Novelist (1902)
Isaac Newton was an English scientist and mathematician, who discovered gravitation and Newtonian Mechanics.
Isaac Stern was a Polish-born American musician.

Browse more famous Isaacs and similar first names →

Looking for names like Isaac?

A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.

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Compare Isaac to Other Popular Names

Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Isaac against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).

Isaac vs Liam 239,320 births since 2014

Isaac vs Noah 230,181 births since 2014

Isaac vs Oliver 164,076 births since 2014

Isaac vs William 159,918 births since 2014

Isaac vs James 157,850 births since 2014

Isaac vs Elijah 153,351 births since 2014

Isaac vs Benjamin 147,449 births since 2014

Isaac vs Lucas 141,302 births since 2014

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