Judas is the Greek form of Judah, from Hebrew, meaning "praised."
Judas is the Greek and Latin form of the Hebrew יְהוּדָה (Yehudah), meaning "praised" or "he will be praised" — a name so common in first-century Judea that the New Testament alone records at least six people who bore it, including one of the twelve apostles, a brother of Jesus, and an early Christian leader known as Jude. The name gave its root to the entire geographic and ethnic identity of the Jewish people, since "Jew" and "Judea" both derive from Yehudah, the fourth son of Jacob whose tribe became the dominant tribe of ancient Israel. The name's trajectory is one of the most dramatic in all of Western history.
Before the first century, Judas/Yehudah was one of the most common and honored names in the Jewish world. After the Gospels fixed "Judas Iscariot" — the apostle who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver — into the center of Christian consciousness, the name became essentially unusable in Christian Europe. No name in Western history has been so completely neutralized by a single historical association.
Dante placed Judas in the innermost circle of Hell; Shakespeare used the name as shorthand for the worst kind of betrayal. Only in Jewish communities, where the betrayal narrative carried less weight, did variants of Yehudah survive and flourish. In the modern era, Judas has attracted renewed artistic attention.
The 2021 film "Judas and the Black Messiah" and the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" have complicated the figure, exploring Judas as a tragic rather than simply villainous figure. A few parents, particularly those drawn to biblical names or interested in reclaiming complex historical identities, have begun reconsidering the name — though it remains extraordinarily rare in practice. Its weight is immense, its history is extraordinary, and its meaning — "praised" — is deeply ironic given its trajectory.