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There is an interesting study about Jewish genetics at Khazaria Info Center, from which we've borrowed some of the following information:
The word Jew is rooted in the name "Judah". Judah was one of Jacob's 12 sons and he was the father of one of the 12 Tribes of Israel. About 26 centuries ago, ten of the Tribes of Israel disappeared into exile. Only the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and the Levites remained. Since Judah was the preeminent tribe, the land was known as "Eretz Yehuda," or Judea, and the remaining Israelites were called "Yehudim," Jews. One of the earliest appearances of the word "Jew" is in the Book of Esther, in which the hero is referred to as "Mordechai Hayehudi," Mordechai "the Judean" or "the Jew." (Book of Esther 10:3)
Biblically, a Jew is a descendant of Abraham through Isaac through Jacob. A Jew is anyone whose mother and/or father is a Jew. Jews are a nation and a people. To be considered Jewish one must be a physical descendant of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-3).
The name for the Jewish people in Hebrew is Yehudim. Jews are also called "Hebrews", and the language of the Jews is "Hebrew."
Classical Rabbinic literature has a tradition which traces the word Jew to Genesis 29:35 which says that Judah's mother - the matriarch Leah - named him Judah because she wanted to praise God for giving birth to so many sons: She became pregnant again and had a son. She said, 'This time let me praise (odeh) God,' and named the child Judah (Yehudah)" - Thus combining "praise" and "God" into one new name.
Thereafter in the Biblical narrative, Judah vouchsafes the Jewish monarchy, and the Israelite kings David and Solomon derive their lineage from Judah. Indeed, there is the tradition that the "Judaeans" (Jews) are named for him, their ancient tribal ancestor.
In Hebrew, the name "Judah" contains the four letters of the Tetragrammaton - the special, holy, and ineffable name of the Jewish God. The very holiness of the name of Judah attests to its importance as an alternate name for "Israelites" that it ultimately replaces.
A much less common view is that the word Jew is from Jewry, from the Greek evrei meaning Hebrew, which some speculate comes from the ancient Egyptian hiberu or habiru, which meant stranger. Under the latter view, Abraham, Jacob/Israel and other patriarchs are regarded as Jews while under the former only the descendants (ethnically or physically) of the Judaeans from the Kingdom of Judah would be Jews, strictly speaking. In the Hebrew language the word "Hebrew", ivri means "one who 'passes' over" as did the patriarch Abraham, referred to as "Abram the Hebrew" (Genesis 14:13) who "passed over" from being a gentile to becoming a "convert" to the faith of Monotheism. Another theory is that this root is derived from the name of Eber mentioned in Genesis 10:21.
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