Mordecai
About Mordecai
Mordecai, although it has a noble heritage, has never caught on in this country, because of its rather weighty image. Nevertheless, with parents searching for rarer Biblical names that work as alternatives to Malachi and Matthew, Mordecai has seen increased interest in recent years and was given to 74 boys in the US in 2024.
Mordecai is a symbolic name for boys born on the holiday of Purim, because this cousin of Queen Esther helped her save the Jews from destruction at the hands of Haman.
Mordecai Richler was a Canadian author and screenwriter whose best known work is The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Pronounced MAWR-duh-kie.
As of October 2026, Mordecai ranked #2100 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #1715 in 2022, Nameberry popularity #613.
Editor's take: The name Mordecai is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "follower of Marduk".
Popularity & trends
Data table
| Year | US rank | Births | Per million |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | #2,453 | 52 | 27.1 |
| 2015 | #2,319 | 57 | 29.7 |
| 2016 | #2,080 | 68 | 35.8 |
| 2017 | #2,147 | 64 | 34.6 |
| 2018 | #2,201 | 63 | 34.7 |
| 2019 | #2,057 | 71 | 39.6 |
| 2020 | #1,795 | 84 | 48.7 |
| 2021 | #2,073 | 71 | 40.6 |
| 2022 | #1,715 | 99 | 56.7 |
| 2023 | #1,946 | 80 | 46.8 |
| 2024 | #2,046 | 74 | 43 |
| 2025 | #2,100 | 70 | 41 |
World rankings
Similar names
These 20 names were selected by our users looking for other names like Mordecai.
- Tiberius
- Balthazar
- Octavius
- Romulus
- Amadeus
- Lazarus
- Leonidas
- Constantine
- Ulysses
- Remus
- Cato
- Fabian
- Ignatius
- Marcellus
- Cyril
- Oberon
- Thaddaeus
- Albus
- Inigo
- Percival
Mordecai on lists
Famous Mordecais
- Mordecai
who returned to Judah with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 7:7)
- Mordecai
servant of King Ahasuerus (possibly Xerxes I); cousin of Queen Esther, who helped save the Hebrews
- Mordecai Richler
Canadian author, screenwriter and essayist
- Mordecai Peter Centennial "Three Finger" Brown
American baseball player
- Mordecai Menahem Kaplan
Lithuanian,American rabbi and educator
Mordecai in pop culture
- Mordecai the Blue Jay
character on TV's "Regular Show"
- Mordecai
Richie's pet hawk in movie "The Royal Tenenbaums"
- Mordecai
character in video game "Borderlands"
- Mordecai Ali van Allen O'Shea
made,up name from "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss
- Mordecai Cohen
Mirah's consumptive brother, a visionary young Jew, in "Daniel Deronda" (1874,6) by George Eliot
- Mr Mordecai
character in "The Absentee" (1812) by Maria Edgeworth
- Mordecai Himmelfarb
ex,professor of English, a Jewish immigrant to Austria, in Patrick White's "Riders in the Chariot" (1961)
- Mordecai Jones
legendary con man in "The Ballad of the Flim,Flam Man" (1965, rev. 1967) by Guy Owen
Variations & nicknames
- MotlYiddish
- MotkeYiddish