Judah means praise — his mother Leah named him saying, now will I praise the LORD. Though not the firstborn, Judah received the royal blessing: the sceptre shall not depart from Judah... until Shiloh come. From his tribe came David, and in time Jesus himself, the Lion of the tribe of Juda.
Judah's own story includes real failure and real growth: it was he who offered himself as surety for Benjamin, willing to become a slave in his brother's place — a foreshadow of the substitution his greatest descendant would make.
Judah (and its form Jude) has grown popular for its meaning and its royal, worshipful resonance.
Variants & nicknames
Jude, Judas, Yehuda
Judah in the Bible
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.