Giordano
An Italian surname from the personal name Giordano, ultimately linked to the River Jordan and used widely in medieval Italy.
The #2,197 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 18,634 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Giordano is the Italian form of Jordan, the biblical name of the river in the Holy Land. In medieval Europe it became a personal name, especially after Christian baptismal use made it popular, and the surname arose from that given name. Some older writers also suggested that the name’s spread in Europe was helped by an older Germanic personal-name tradition, but the basic sense remained association with the Jordan.
History
The surname is strongly Italian in form and distribution, and it is well attested in medieval Italian records as both a personal name and later a family name. Historical mentions also show the related forms Jordan and Jourdain in France and England, reflecting the wider European use of the same baptismal name. In the 19th-century scholarship supplied here, writers note Giordano as the Italian equivalent of Jordan and connect it with medieval naming fashions.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
A medieval Calabrian nobleman named Count Giordano Lancia is noted in the historical literature as a contemporary of King Manfred of Sicily.
From the historical record
“Jordan, has given Judson, Judkins, and the con- tracted Jukes. It is probable that Jordan (Fr. Jourdain, Ital. Giordano) is an Old German personal name mistakenly associated with the sacred river of Palestine. Tebbe is for Theobald (p. 4). Many people, in addressing a small boy with whom they are unacquainted, are…”
— The Romance of Names