Where the Jordan name comes from

The surname Jordan goes back to the Biblical Hebrew יַרְדֵּן (yarden), the name of the Jordan River in West Asia. It reached English through Ancient Greek and then Latin, where it took the form Iordanes. The New Testament places the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in that river. Crusaders and pilgrims carried its water home in containers and used it to baptise their own children in Europe and Britain. Children christened with that water were given the name to match, and Jordan established itself as a medieval given name before families began passing it down. The 6th-century Gothic historian Jordanes may have helped spread it as well.