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An Eastern-European, patronymic-derived surname literally meaning "Of Jacob". An equivalent to "Jacobson".
While this is not an exclusively Jewish surname, it's often found in Jewish families. In the Russian Empire, the vast majority of Jews did not have surnames until the 19th century, at which point they usually picked one based on their occupation, home town, patronymic or matronymic (father's name with a suffix like -ovich).
Since the patriarch Jacob (later known as Israel) is the ancestor of all Israelites, it's possible that in some families the surname was not adopted from a patronymic, but was used as a synonym of "Israeli".
Variants:
- Russian: Якубович
- Hebrew: יעקבוביץ, בן-יעקב
- Polish: Jacobowitz
Links:
- Yakubovich on Wikipedia
- Leonid Yakubovich - a Russian TV personality