Jacob

The name Jacob comes from Hebrew, from Ya'aqov. In the Book of Genesis the child is born gripping his twin brother's heel, and readers took the name to mean holder of the heel. The sense of supplanter was attached later, once Jacob had taken the birthright that his brother Esau let slip. That second meaning follows the story.

In English-speaking countries the name spread through the Bible and settled in for good. Jacob sat at the top of the boys' names in the United States for more than a decade after 1999. Popularity like that marks a whole generation of classrooms.

In Polish the name becomes Jakub, and the short form is Kuba. A boy can answer to Kuba for years before a teacher first reads Jakub aloud from the class register on the first day of school. Same person, two registers of one name. Behind both stands the old sense, holder of the heel.