Jude✳

Jude is a modern star, maintaining a steady level of popularity — but not TOO much popularity, in the US at least. Thank Jude Law and the great Lennon-McCartney song "Hey Jude", both responsible for propelling Jude up the charts.

Meaning "praised", the name was borne by the apostle, Saint Jude, who intervened on behalf of those desperate situations and became the patron saint of lost causes and hospitals — and the Chicago Police Department. The more positive Biblical association helps to distance the name for the similar Judas, borne by the traitorous Judas Iscariot.

A literary name, appearing in Thomas Hardy's tragic novel, Jude the Obscure and in the more recent (but equally tragic) A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, Jude is also notably borne by footballer Jude Bellingham. The name is occasionally used for girls (as in Martha Stewart's granddaughter)--but more often as a shortened form of Judith/Judy.