Mordecai (Hebrew Mordekhai, possibly derived from the Babylonian deity name Marduk) is the central male figure of the book of Esther and appears briefly in Ezra 2:2 among those returning from exile with Zerubbabel. In Esther, he is introduced as a Benjaminite descended from the exiles taken with Jeconiah (Esth 2:5-6), who raises his orphaned cousin Hadassah (Esther) as his own daughter. His refusal to bow before Haman sets the entire plot in motion, and his eventual elevation to vizier (Esth 10:3) reverses the threatened genocide. The name is transliterated consistently across languages — Spanish Mardoqueo, French Mardochee, German Mordechai — reflecting its status as a fixed proper noun throughout the biblical tradition.