Jordanna

History & Origin

Jordanna is one of several feminine forms of Jordan, a name taken from the River Jordan of the Bible. The river's name comes from a Hebrew word for descending or flowing down, fitting for a river that runs down to the Dead Sea. Jordan had long been given to children brought to be baptized, and in the later twentieth century it surged as a unisex name. Feminine elaborations like Jordana and Jordanna let parents keep the name distinctly girlish.

Jordanna followed the broader Jordan trend at a smaller scale, with only a few dozen girls a year receiving it and a high point around 1989. A girl named Jordanna then would be in her mid-thirties today. It reads as a graceful, slightly more ornate take on a name that was very fashionable, and its meaning comes straight from the river and the Hebrew root behind it.