John (given name)

John

Pronunciation	English: /ˈdʒɒn/
Gender	Male
Origin
Word/name	Hebrew (via Latin and Greek)
Meaning	"The Lord is merciful"

John is an English masculine given name.

Origins

The name John derives via Latin [Iōhannēs] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and Greek Template:Polytonic from the Hebrew name יוחנן (Yôḥanan, also transliterated Yochanan), a short form of the long name יְהוֹחָנָן Yehochanan, meaning "Yahweh is merciful". Yochanan was the name of several important rabbis in the Second Temple Period in Israel, such as Yochanan ben Zakai and Yochanan ben Nuri.

The name had gained popularity among Jews in Judea and Galilee by the time the area became a province of the Roman Empire in 6 A.D. and before. John Hyrcanus (יהוחנן), was the first king of the Hasmonean Dynasty, and was the nephew of Judas Maccabeus. It was the given name of Yochanan ben Zechariah, a Jewish prophet known in English as John the Baptist.

The New Testament was written in Greek, and the Hebrew name was adapted in Greek as Template:Polytonic, Iōannēs. The name Ioannes became extremely popular among the early Christians, and bearers include such noted members of the early church as Ioannes Chrysostomos.

Continental Europe

The name came into use in other parts of the Christianized Roman Empire. The Western areas of the Roman Empire did not, however, speak Greek like the areas in the East. Instead, they spoke Latin. Accordingly, in the Western part of the Roman Empire the name was Latinized as Iohannes (pronounced like the Greek).

The local populations in these areas of the Roman Empire soon changed Roman names to fit their own dialect, which included dropping the suffixes -us and -es from such names. In the Roman sphere of influence, Johannes became the Italian Giovanni, the Germanic Johann, the Hungarian János, and the Slavic languages Ivan, Jan, Ján, Honza and Jovan, and Ion in the area on the Black Sea that is now Romania. On the outskirts of the Empire in the newly converted Ireland it became the Irish Eoin. In some cases, the pronunciation of the original initial "Y"/"I" also changed to variants of "J", so that in Iberia the name eventually changed to the Spanish Juan and the medieval Portuguese Juo/Joane (now João) and Ivo. In Gaul, it became the Old French Jehan and later Jean (pronounced /ʒɑ̃/). In the Occitano-Romance area it became Joan (feminine, Joana) and Jan in Occitan and Catalan, from older Iouan and Iohan. In Albanian, Gjon, or either Gjin is used for males. In Welsh, the name John is rendered as Ieuan (pronounced as Yay-an or Yey-an), and as Ifan (pronounced Evan. Ifan eventually became rendered into English as Evan.

In English-speaking countries

In the 11th century the Norman duke William the Conqueror invaded and conquered England and brought his French knights and their dialect with him. In England, the French name Jean came to be pronounced like the current name John, though prior to the adoption into English of the letter 'J', the letter 'I' was used. Seventeenth Century English texts still spelled the name Iohn. Since then, it has been spelled in its current form, John.

Name statistics

John has been a common given name in English speaking countries, and either it or William was the number one name in England and English speaking North America from around 1550 until the middle of the twentieth century. John was the most popular name given to male infants in the United States until 1924, and though its use has fallen off gradually since then, John was still the 20th most common name for boys on the Social Security Administration's list of names given in 2006.

It was also long the most common male name in the UK, but by 2004 it had fallen out of the top 50 names for newborn boys in England and Wales. By contrast Jack, which was a nickname for John but is established as a name in its own right, was the most popular name given to newborn boys in England and Wales every year from 1995 to 2005.

In the United Kingdom, the name John has not been a popular name for members of the royal household. King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215; Prince Alexander John, the youngest son of King Edward VII, died shortly after birth, and Prince John, the youngest son of King George V, died in his sleep in 1919. As such, the name John has been considered unlucky by the British Royal Family and its use avoided. It was reported that Diana, Princess of Wales wished to name her elder son "John", after her own father, but was prevented from doing so by royal tradition.

John is the most popular name in the United States. 1/25th of Americans are named John, and the popularity of the name is 39.93 people per thousand. When the statistics of the name are compared to the population statistics of America, the approximate number of people named John in the USA is 12,328,091 and the number of Johns in the USA is increasing by 104,925 each year. The popularity of the name as a first name is 72.86% and as a middle name is 27.14%.

Common mistakes

Because the name Jonathan is sometimes abbreviated as Jon, John is sometimes incorrectly considered to be a short form of Jonathan, especially in the United States. John comes from the Hebrew name Yôḥānnān, whereas Jonathan derives from the Hebrew יוֹנָתָן Yônāṯān, which means "Gift from the Lord" and thus is a longer version of Nathan.

In other languages

Afrikaans	Jan, Johan
Albanian	Gjon, Gjin
Amharic	ዮሐንስ (Yoḥännǝs)
Arabic	يحيى (Yaḥyā), يوحنا (Yuḥanna)
Aragonese	Chuan
Armenian	Հովհաննես (Hovhannes)
Asturian	Xuan
Basque	Jon, Yon, Ion, Manez, Ganix, Joanes
Bosnian	Ivan
Breton	Yann
Bulgarian	Йоан (Joan), Иван (Ivan)
Catalan	Joan
Chinese	約翰 (Yuēhàn)
Corsican	Ghjuvanni
Croatian	Ivan, Ivo, Ive
Czech	Jan
Danish	Hans, Jens, Jan, Jon, Johan, Johannes
Dutch	Hannes, Hans, Jan, Johan, Johannes
English	John, Ewan, Shawn, Johnny, Jack, Ian, Evan
Esperanto	Johano
Estonian	Jaan, Juhan, Juho
Extremaduran	Huan
Faroese	Jógvan
Finnish	Hannes, Hannu, Jani, Janne, Johannes, Juha, Juho, Juhani
French	Jean
Galician	Xoán, Xan
Georgian	იოანე (Ioane)
German	Hans, Johannes, Johann
Greek	Ιωάννης (Ioannis)
Guaraní	Huã
Hakka	Yok-Hon
Hebrew	יוחנן (Yôḥānnān)
Hungarian	János
Icelandic	Jóhann, Jóhannes
Indonesian	Yohannes, Yahya
Irish	Seán, Iohán
Italian	Giovanni, Gianni
Korean	요한
Latin	Ioannes
Latvian	Jānis
Lithuanian	Jonas
Lombard	Giuàn
Macedonian	Јован (Jovan)
Malayalam	യോഹനൊന് (Yoohanon)
Maltese	Ġwanni
Norweigan	Jon, Johan, Johannes
Persian	Yohannan
Piedmontese	Gioann
Polish	Jan
Portuguese	João
Romanian	Ion, Ioan, Ionuţ, Ionel, Ionică
Russian	Иван (Ivan), Ян (Jan), Иоанн (Ioann)
Samogitian	Juons
Sardinian	Giuanni
Scottish	Ian, Iain
Serbian	Јован (Jovan), Иван (Ivan)
Sicilian	Giuvanni
Slovak	Ján, Ivan
Slovene	Janez, Ivan, Ivo, Jan, Janko, Anže, Anžej
Spanish	Juan
Swedish	Jan, Jon, Johan, Johannes, Hannes, Hans
Turkish	Yahya, Jan
Ukrainian	Іван (Ivan), Іванко (Ivanko)
Welsh	Ioan, Siôn