Jackie Robinson's given first name at birth was Jack. His full birth name was Jack Roosevelt Robinson, and “Jackie” became the familiar name by which he was known publicly.
Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, the youngest of five children of Mallie and Jerry Robinson. His middle name honored President Theodore Roosevelt, who had died only 25 days before Robinson's birth.
“Jackie” was not a separate birth first name, and “Jack” is not a shortened form of another name such as Jackson. The names Joseph, James, and John are common distractors but do not appear in his birth name. After his family moved to Pasadena, California, Robinson developed into an exceptional multi-sport athlete before breaking Major League Baseball's modern color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.