Hold on to your jeans! The name Levi comes directly from the Hebrew name לוי (leví, pronounced le-VEE), where it is the name of Jacob's third son, whose birth is recorded in Genesis 29:34. According to the etymology offered in that verse, Leah says, "Now this time my husband will be joined (ילוה) to me, because I have borne him three sons," suggesting that the name Levi is related to the Hebrew verb לוה (l-w-h), meaning "to join, be joined." The same verb, לוה, can also mean "to borrow," as in Nehemiah 5:4 and Isaiah 24:2, but this usage is related to "being joined" as borrowing money from someone typically "joins" a person to the lender, often contractually, and in the ancient world, often in a subservient manner. This likely explains the passage in Numbers 18:2: "So bring with you also your brothers of the tribe of Levi (לוי), your ancestral tribe, in order that they may be joined (וילוו) to you, and serve you while you and your sons with you are in front of the tent of the covenant." The tribe of Levi went on to become the priestly tribe that served the rest of the Israelites as priests before God.

And yes, back in 1829, Levi Strauss was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Buttenheim, a city in the Kingdom of Bavaria in the German Confederation at the time. In 1847, at age 18, he immigrated with his family to the United States and eventually established Levi Strauss & Co. (Levi's) in 1853 in San Francisco, California, selling a new kind of denim pants called jeans.