Julian: The Name We Kept Coming Back To

My wife Maya and I have been making name lists since we found out we were having a boy — sticky notes on the refrigerator, a shared notes app, a running text thread with her mom that I’ve started quietly dreading. We live in Portland, which means we’ve been surrounded by Jaxons and Atticuses and the occasional Caspian at every coffee shop we walk into. Nothing wrong with any of those. But none of them felt like our kid.

Then one evening in November, I was sitting in our living room half-watching a documentary about John Lennon. They interviewed Julian — John’s eldest son — and I heard him talk about his father with this kind of gentle, unguarded honesty that got to me. My own dad died two years ago. He was a quiet man, an architect, someone who built things that lasted. When Julian Lennon said, “I just wanted him to be proud of me,” I had to put the remote down. I looked at Maya and said the name out loud for the first time as a real candidate, not just a list entry: Julian. She didn’t say anything for a second. Then: “Yeah. That one.”

That was the moment. We still have the sticky notes. But Julian has been at the top of every list since.

What Julian Actually Means

Julian comes from the Latin Iulianus, a Roman family name derived from Julius. And Julius — that’s where things get interesting. The root is almost certainly tied to the Greek ioulos, meaning “downy-bearded” or “soft-haired.” It was used to describe a young man whose beard was just coming in, that transitional phase between boy and adult. Youthful, in the most literal sense.

There’s a second thread in the etymology worth knowing: some scholars connect Julius to Iovis, the Latin name for Jupiter — the sky father, the king of the Roman gods. If that lineage holds, then Julian carries something enormous in its syllables: not just youth, but the weight of the sky, the authority of a father-god. [Link: Latin boy names with powerful meanings]

What I love about this layered meaning is the way it holds two things at once — the softness of youth and something ancient and weightful underneath. A name that starts tender and grows into gravity. For a kid who I hope will feel both free and grounded, that feels exactly right.

Where the Name Comes From

Julian is a Latin name through and through, born from the Roman gens Iulia — one of the most powerful families in Roman history. Julius Caesar carried that name. So did several Roman emperors, including Julian the Apostate, the fourth-century emperor who was one of the last pagans to rule Rome. He’s a complicated historical figure, but he was also a philosopher and a writer, someone who took ideas seriously.

The name moved easily through Christian Europe. In medieval England, Julian was used for both men and women — Julian of Norwich, the 14th-century mystic and theologian who wrote Revelations of Divine Love, is one of the most important English writers of the Middle Ages, and she carried the name in its feminine form. [Link: gender-neutral baby names with medieval history]

By the time the name reached the modern era, it had traveled through Spanish (Julián), French (Julien), Italian (Giuliano), and Portuguese, each culture shaping it slightly differently but keeping the core intact. It’s a genuinely cosmopolitan name — one that feels at home across a lot of contexts without losing its identity.

How Popular Is Julian Right Now

Julian currently sits at #30 on the SSA rankings for boys — solidly in the top tier, well-known without being oversaturated. What’s remarkable is the trajectory that brought it here.

In the 1980s, roughly 13,411 boys were named Julian across the entire decade. In the 1990s, that number climbed to 28,338. Through the 2000s, it jumped to 61,109, then continued rising in the 2010s to 79,875. The 2020s are only half over, and the count already stands at 37,127 — on pace to match or exceed the previous decade.

That’s not a name having a moment. That’s a name on a sustained, multi-decade rise. It doesn’t have the spike-and-crash profile of a trendy name. It has the slow burn of something becoming genuinely established.

At #30, it’s popular enough that your kid won’t spend his whole life spelling it for people, but uncommon enough that he probably won’t share it with three classmates. For what it’s worth, Maya’s sister has a son named Liam — the perennial top-five fixture — and he corrects people about which Liam he is constantly. I’d rather give our son a name that’s recognizable without being a crowd.

Famous Julians Worth Knowing

Part of choosing a name is living with its associations. These are the Julians I keep thinking about:

Julian Lennon — John Lennon’s eldest son, whose debut single “Too Late for Goodbyes” reached the top ten in multiple countries. He’s built a life and career largely on his own terms, which strikes me as its own kind of accomplishment.

Julian of Norwich — The 14th-century English anchorite and theologian, author of the first book written in English by a woman. Her line “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” has aged remarkably well.

Julian Casablancas — Frontman of The Strokes, one of the defining rock voices of the early 2000s, still releasing music worth paying attention to.

Julian Assange — Founder of WikiLeaks, one of the most polarizing figures in modern journalism and international politics. Whatever your view of his work, his name was front-page news for over a decade.

Julián Castro — Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and 2020 presidential candidate, one of the most prominent Latino politicians of his generation.

Julian Edelman — Super Bowl MVP and three-time champion with the New England Patriots, widely regarded as one of the best slot receivers in NFL history.

Variants and Nicknames

Julian has natural shortenings that don’t feel forced. Jules is the most common and carries a certain effortless cool to it — French-inflected without being precious. Juli shows up occasionally, particularly in Spanish-speaking families. Some kids go by JJ when there’s a family initial in play.

In other languages the name takes on slightly different shapes: Julián in Spanish (with the accent pushing the final syllable forward), Julien in French, Giuliano in Italian, Iulian in Romanian, Yulian in Russian and Bulgarian. Each version carries the same core identity with a different cultural texture — useful if your family has roots you’d like the name to honor.

For middle name pairings, Julian accommodates both short, punchy names (Julian Cole, Julian Reid, Julian Brooks) and longer, more formal ones (Julian Alexander, Julian Theodore, Julian Emmanuel). The three syllables give it enough weight to stand alone without crowding whatever comes after.

Why We’re Going with Julian

When my dad was alive, he used to say that a name should be something a person can grow into. He wasn’t sentimental about it — he was an architect, he thought about structure — but he believed names had load-bearing qualities. Something about Julian has that quality for me. It’s not trying too hard. It doesn’t announce itself. But it’s been here for two thousand years and it’s still standing, which suggests it knows how to hold weight.

I also think about the meaning — youthful, soft-haired, sky father — and the way those three things coexist. I want our son to stay curious and open the way children are, to keep something light about him even as he grows into himself. And I want him to feel the sky over him, not pressing down but opening up. Julian feels like a name that leaves room for that.

Maya’s already calling him Jules around the apartment. The sticky notes are mostly gone now. We’re keeping one on the fridge — just his name in her handwriting — because it seemed worth having somewhere to look at it for a while before he arrives.