Jude

JOOD

The name Jude is the English form of the Greek Ioudas, itself derived from the Hebrew Yehudah, meaning “praised” or “let him be praised.” In the Book of Genesis, Yehudah is the fourth son of Jacob and Leah and the ancestor of the tribe of Judah, from

US Rank

No. 156

Births

2,284

Peak Year

2021

which the southern Israelite kingdom and the term Jew ultimately derive.

English translators of the New Testament used Jude to distinguish the apostle and epistle writer from Judas Iscariot, whose betrayal of Jesus made the longer form unusable as a Christian given name for nearly 2000 years.

What the name Jude means

2 New Testament figures bear the name.

Saint Jude Thaddaeus, one of the twelve apostles, became the patron saint of lost causes and desperate cases, a devotion popularized in the 18th century and now sustained by the National Shrine of Saint Jude in Chicago and the children’s research

hospital founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962.

Jude the brother of James, traditionally identified as the author of the brief Epistle of Jude, is venerated on 28 October in the Western church.

Thomas Hardy’s tragic novel Jude the Obscure (1895) brought the name into modern literary consciousness, while The Beatles transformed it into a global anthem with Hey Jude (1968), written by Paul McCartney for John Lennon’s son Julian.

The single spent 9 weeks at the top of the US charts and remains one of the best-selling songs of all time. The name also appears in Jude the Apostle by El Greco and in numerous folk ballads invoking the saint of impossible cases.

Jude entered the SSA top 1000 in 1995, helped by the rise of British actor Jude Law, whose breakout role in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Oscar nomination for Cold Mountain (2003) gave the name fresh international cachet.

By 2023 Jude had climbed into the top 100, embraced by parents drawn to its biblical brevity and literary weight. England footballer Jude Bellingham has further raised its profile in the 2020s.