Jordan
The story
Jordan began as water. The Hebrew Yarden names the river that descends toward the Dead Sea, and its root means to flow down. Because the New Testament places the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, medieval pilgrims and crusaders brought river water home for baptisms, and the place name became a personal name in Europe. It faded after the Middle Ages, returned in the nineteenth century, and then found a completely new American life. The US curve rises sharply in the 1980s, peaks in the 1990s, and eases after 2000. By then Jordan had become comfortably unisex, helped by a surname sound and by Michael Jordan's unmatched visibility, though a chart cannot assign the rise to one person. Few names bridge so many categories at once: biblical place, river, surname, boys' name, girls' name, and a generation that heard it everywhere.
Jordan's name family
One shared root links 4 names in English.
Shared root: from the river Jordan, Hebrew Yarden "flowing down", taken home as a given name by medieval pilgrims
The family
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Jordan peaked in the 1990s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
9,839 people · the #1,736 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 20,833 · median age 23
Among people named Jordan living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 915 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Jordan
Most people given the name Jordan in the United States were born between 1990 and 2009. The Jordan you meet today is most often in their 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Jordan deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Jordan truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Jordan fits with your family’s names and surname.
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