The name has been very common throughout the English-speaking world since end of the 20th century. In the United States it reached a high point in 2017, when it ranked as the fifth most popular name for boys.
The name appears in the New Testament with the spellings Judas and Jude.
The name has been used by kings of Scotland, Poland and Yugoslavia, emperors of Russia, and eight popes. Other notable bearers include English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), American statesman Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander MacKenzie (1764-1820), Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), and Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), the Scottish-Canadian-American inventor of the telephone.