

Jordan Brown
Oct 7, 2024
Wearing #23 can come with a lot of pressure
Being named Jordan comes with a lot of expectations. You’re expected to be good at basketball. You’re expected to be a huge fan of Michael Jordan. But that same pressure can also inspire greatness.
At least that’s what four Gen Zers named Jordan – a certified personal trainer, a Tik Tok client specialist, an NCAA community engagement intern and a newspaper writer who covers high school sports – said about being named after the basketball great and force behind the top-selling sneaker of all time.
Jordan Harris, a certified personal trainer who hails from Prince George’s County in Maryland, was one of the star basketball players at Bowie High School in Maryland from 2015 to 2019 – a period when the team had at least two players named Jordan on the roster during multiple seasons.
Harris said his parents had the Bible and basketball on their minds when they selected his name. His mother liked the name Jordan for its biblical connection to the Jordan River, where Jesus was baptized. His father had the vision of the basketball standout his son would later become. The couple agreed on Jordan Michael Harris.
Harris followed in the footsteps of his namesake from an early age – playing basketball, idolizing Jordan’s game and even wearing the number 23.
"There's a lot of pressure behind wearing that number, especially with my middle name being Michael," Harris told Sneaker Theory. "It was always a running joke with my basketball team. [It] gets annoying sometimes but it's life."
He eventually changed his number to 3 and later wore the number 5 as a nod to Jordan – adding the 2 and 3 together.

“There’s a lot of pressure behind wearing that number, especially with my middle name being Michael,” Jordan Harris on being named after Michael Jordan and wearing #23.
Harris says living up to the name Jordan was challenging at times. “But once you realize you have your own path, you can be great in anything you do, not just for sports,” Harris says.
Embracing #23
In sports, Jordans either embrace the number 23 or shy away from it. Consider Jordan Horston, a WNBA forward for the Seattle Storm, donning the number 23 every game. She even had her own flu game as a senior in high school in 2019 just like her namesake did in the 1997 NBA finals against the Utah Jazz, moving his team closer to their fifth championship.
Like Horston, Jordan Gooden, a client solutions planner at TikTok, embraced the connection to Jordan whenever she could. The 23-year-old would snag the #23 jersey every chance she got on the soccer field.
“I played soccer all through my younger years, through high school. So literally any jersey I can get 23 on, that's the number I would get because of Michael Jordan,” Gooden said.
She also had a tradition with her father where she would get a new pair of Jordans sneakers for her birthday every year. She’s not a big sneakerhead anymore but still loves her Jordans.
Although she enjoys some of the Jordan Brand perks that come with the name Jordan – having your name on jerseys and shoes, and having a connection to the number 23 in sports – she didn’t get her name from the Jordan that first comes to mind.

“I played soccer all through my younger years, through high school. So literally any jersey I can get 23 on, that's the number I would get because of Michael Jordan,” Jordan Gooden, a client solutions planner at TikTok.
Born in 2000, she was one of the few girls who – like the author of this story – were named after Jordan Armstrong, portrayed by Nia Long in the 1999 film “The Best Man.” Her mother named her Jordan after watching the movie while she was pregnant with Gooden and adoring Long’s portrayal of Armstrong.
“She really liked Nia Long's character, Jordan Armstrong. She's a very strong character. She liked how she portrayed herself,” Gooden said. “My mom also told me she wanted a unisex name.”
Mr. or Ms. Jordan?
Being a girl named Jordan engendered a certain type of confusion.
“A lot of times the conversation is around ‘I thought you would be a boy’ or something like that,” Gooden said. “When people hear my name but don't see my face, that's pretty annoying. But I mean, I've gotten used to it as I’ve gotten older.”
For Jordan Jones, that’s the story of her life. Jordan was the closest name that resembles her father’s name, George, but she often wishes her parents spelled it as Jordyn to avoid the confusion.
“On numerous occasions secretaries at doctor’s offices would tell me they thought I was a boy. I really didn't like when this would happen,” Jones told Sneaker Theory.
She said similar situations have followed her into her career as an inclusion, education and community engagement intern with the NCAA.
“In my professional career I still have the same experience,” Jones said. “Working in sports and a lot of my experience being in football, when people reach out to me, they have said ‘Mr. Jordan Jones.’”
For Jones, it isn’t all bad having the name Jordan. Even though she wasn’t directly named after Jordan, the Baltimore native wore it with pride for her 23rd birthday, which many people call their “Jordan Year” in honor of Jordan’s jersey number 23. For her Jordan year, Jones celebrated in Chicago, the home of Jordan’s championship legacy.

“I bought the cheapest MJ tshirt on the Nike website I could find. I went to his steakhouse [the Michael Jordan Steakhouse] on my actual birthday for dinner and then went to a Bulls game,” Jones said.
The other #23
Even though he’s from Chicago, Jordan Davis, 24 – a high school sports reporter at The Oklahoman – isn’t named after the basketball great.
“In Chicago, you can only hope to assume that that they were all named, or at least a decent chunk of them were named after Michael Jordan, but unfortunately, I wasn't one of them,” Davis says.
Davis said his parents wanted a unisex name that started with the letter J to match his mother's first name, Janie. His mother really liked the name Jordan. While there was not a direct influence from Jordan, the 24-year-old saw Jordan’s influence in Chicago long after Jordan left the Bulls. He remembers Chicagoans donning 23 Jordan jerseys and lining up outside of stores for the fresh Jordan sneaker releases.
“Being from Chicago had a lot more impact on the things that I saw, like based around Michael Jordan,” Davis says. “Even though I didn't grow up in that era or anything, it's clear the impact that he had on the city, even when he wasn't here.”
Like many Jordans, Davis grew up sharing his name with classmates, teammates, friends and others. It got to the point where in order to avoid confusion with other Jordans, he coined the nickname “JD,” a name he still uses to this day.

In middle school, Davis went to school with two other people with the name “Jordan Davis.” One year, a report card for a different Jordan Davis showed up in the mail. It showed he was flunking. His mom thought it was his report card and planned to put him under punishment until she realized it was a mistake. Sharing the name Jordan continued in college as well at North Carolina A&T State University.
Davis grew up playing basketball, but didn’t wear 23 like Jordan. As a big playing forward and center, he wore 34 in honor of one of his idols, Shaquille O’Neal.
When asked about wearing the number 23 with the name Jordan, Davis set the record straight on who his 23 would be for.

“If I was wearing 23 it was for the other 23 [LeBron James,] it wasn't for him,” Davis said in reference to Michael Jordan. “I'm a LeBron fan. Unfortunately, people feel a way about that.”