It should have been mentioned that many if not most versions of that name aren't directly derived from Hebrew, but from the Greek version, "Ioannis", which became "Iohannes" in Latin. That was usually the template. The unabbreviated German version "Johannes" basically adopted the latter 1:1 with a minor spelling adjustment, but there are versions of the authentic "Yohannis" in multiple languages. Your John, Jan, Janos, Yannik, Ivan, Juan, Evan, Hans or Hannes are all shortened versions, often originally nicknames.
Yes, and the final -s was added on in Greek to many names for grammatical reasons only relevant in Greek. That's how Jonah became Jonas, Yehoshua became Jesus, Moshe became Moses, and Yochanon became Ioannes. And several more Eliyahu/Elias, so on and so forth.
Greek name Ioannis has an Eta letter as previous-to-last, which sounds as "i" bow, but in ancient times sounded another way, and hence was transliterated as "e" in Latin.
Yeah, so strange that he didn't talk about any of this. People who watch that video without further explanation will think that John is an originally English name 😒
@Tennis932000 Another name derived from Yuhanna is Hanna which to me sounds a little bit similar to german hans. There are also all sorts of variations which were the result of translating the name to other languages and then back to Arabic like Yuhannun, Hannun and Hinnawy. I believe the same thing can be seen with other historical and biblical names like Mary which Maryam, Maryaam, Maari, are Maraam all have the same origin.
@@Nobody_Cares913 Correct, it's not a translation, but it's also not a commonly used name before it was revealed to be a prophet's name. Yohanan actually has a cognate in Arabic, same with Yahya in Hebrew. It might have just been that way since prophets often had multiple names/titles. Like Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was also known as Ahmad. Yohnaan (God bestowed grace/mercy) might have been what he was called in the day, but his name in Arabic was Yahya (he lives), referencing that he was martyred and isn't truly dead according to our beliefs.
Same for me with Henry - Heinrich - Jindřich. (I knew Jindřich and Henry are the same name, but Heinrich helped me realise how they are related, despite being so different)
Hank actually started out as a medieval diminutive of John. Hank essentially developed from Hankin where by “Han” was short for Johan (a German and Scandinavian form of John) and “-kin” was a Middle English diminutive suffix
With Portuguese, I find it helpful to remember that the ~ sign comes from an abbreviation for N, and letters like ã and õ mean that there used to be an actual n following the letter, but now you need to just hint at it by adding a nasal throat closing to the word.
"Ivan" sounds nothing like John, partly because you pronounced it the way English speakers say the name instead of the native way. The way native speakers say it is pretty close to the way English speakers say the (unrelated?) name "Yvonne", and isn't so far away from the Greek version which influenced much of the Slavic world through the Orthodox Churches.
Here in Latvia we have name Jānis, which is also one of the most popular names in our country. Also we have summer solstice holidays named after this name, called Jāņi.
Ian. Owen. Owain. Ewen. Jan. But not Jonathan. (Heb Yonatan, G-d has given) Greek Iannos or Yannos, from which most European variants come. Also Slavonic diminutive Janusz (to use the Polish/Czech/Slovak spelling). You mention Guillermo but not Guillaume. Have you forgotten 1066? And from Guillaume, possibly Guy. Elchanon, Chananiel, Chananijah - all Hebrew and Biblical variants of the same meaning. It was a general method of creating names in many Semitic cultures. Hence, in Carthaginian Phonecian, we find Hannibal, in native form Chananba'al, "Ba'al is gracious"
@@konstkaras I always find it stupid that in English, ж is translitterated as "zh", which most just pronounce as a regular "z", which makes stupid things like "Marshall Zukov", "Wagner's chief Prigozin",... but "Djukov" would be silly as well. In French (I'm French BTW), most translitterations are OK ("Joukov" makes the right sound), ы and х do not really exist, so "y" and "kh" are OK as translitterations. The one I really do not like is щ as "chtch" because it's a mouthful, when we could use "sch" (ш being rendered as "ch" and ч as "tch")
@@takix2007 any way to write a sound lacking in language is a compromise, so it can't be perfect. Writing Ж as zh seems reasonable: it differs from sh the same way z differs from s.
Isn't it John one of the odd one out, though, thus making it unfair that other versions "sound nothing like it"? You correctly say that it comes from Yochanan. I may add that it came to England via the Hellenized version Ioannes. Neither start with a J sound, nor are only one syllable. Johannes, Giovanni, Ivanos are all much closer to the origin of the name than John is.
Yeah, as an italian I was a bit frustrated. "Giovanni sounds nothing like John", why should it? It's much more closely related to the Greek version At times he was talking like all the other versions were derived from English, I really don't like this superficiality. Also the pronounciations! "Ivan sounds nothing like John", well aside from the fact that it must resemble the Greek version, it's because differently from the majority of other languages, english speakers read IVAN as AIVEN...
Hello ´from Denmark. *Jan* and *Jens* are two importatn variants, along with those you mentioned, *Johannes, Hans, Johan, Jon* etc. *Jens* is important because it is the basis for the most popular last name *Jensen* . *Hansen* is the third most popular, and *Johansen* no 18. The actress Scarlett Johansson's father has a danish background, but the name Johansson has the Swedish-English - son variant. That guy Yochanan the babtist was aparently very popular.
In College I had a few classmates that where all named John in different languages. João Victor (portuguese), John Weslley (english), Yohran (russian) and Juan (spanish), although all of them where brazilian. Also, later, when doing my masters, there was a guy called Geovan, i'd presume that makes it 5.
A Mohawk version of John is Shawátis (saw-wAH-diss). It comes from the common French Jesuit name of Jean Baptiste. Jean was translated to “Sha”and Baptiste is translated into “Watis” (Mohawk doesn’t have “b” and “p” sounds).
The letter J is actually the newest letter in the “alphabet” this why a lot of Germanic and romantic languages have different uses for it. It evolved from the letter I and Y(kinda).
Reminds of the Storyteller cartoon series from years ago : " I have many stories, tales for both the young and old. I have many voices to describe many places. Many names have I, and many faces… In Russia I am Ivan; in Sweden I am Jan. In Germany I’m Johan; in America, I’m John. From my many travels, I have gathered these tales, to teach you good sense, when all else fails… Sometimes there are tears, sometimes there is laughter…”
As someone named Jack, I knew the origin of the name because Ive had a lot of people ask me if my “real name” was John. I always got angry at this as a kid but now I don’t care. It can be a good conversation starter, you’d be surprised how many people know the origin of their own name
The other day I was thinking about the the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and it sounds so exotic in English until you realize his name is Joe Green. He sounds like a vegetable farmer.
We're a cross-cultural family, and my father-in-law's name is Shan or 山 in Mandarin. And so when we thinking about names when my wife was pregnant, my mom suggested Shawn after his grandfather, and we went with that spelling because it vaguely looks like Sha山n.
In swedish we have the names of Jonas, Johan and Jan my guess is that they all are shortening of johannes. We also have the female names of Johanna and Hanna and Anna that all is female versions of shortening of Johannes
Hanna is both a shortening of Johanna and a name derived from channā according to the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore. Thought it was the same with Anna but Anna is just a Swedish version of channā like you said
Another weird translation of John is polish Janusz. I often see people who think its English equivalent is Jason, not knowing it is just a fancy, extended version of Polish’s regular translation of John - Jan.
So the French version Jean came into Irish as Seán which you mentioned. But another name in Ireland: Eógan also spelled Eóghan usually spelled Owen or Eoin in English is also an Irish variant of John. This name may be related to the Welsh name Owain. In Scotland the name Seán was very popular (Seán Connery for example), but a name based on the vocative version of Seán: Ian/Iain, is probably more popular today and also related to John. In Northern Ireland the name Seán is often spelled Séan and pronounced like Shane and spelled that way in English but comes from the same name. Welsh names Sion (also spelled Shôn) and Iefan (anglicized as Evan) are considered variants of John. In Scotland a variant spelling of Eoin as Eathain can be found mostly in the Highlands and western islands. Another related Scottish name Ewan is also considered a variant of John.
Thanks for this vid! I just realized that the name of John in chinese yue1han4 約翰, is actually a transliteration of the german version johannes. I always thought i was because of some weird chinese acccent XD
Other Johns: French Jean, Dutch Jan. 1:05 if you put German Wilhelm in the middle (and take into account that that one too is an evolution from the original), it makes more sense: the "W" either was read as a "b" like in modern German and turned into a hard "g" in Spanish and a regular "w" in English, or was read as a semivowel like in English and ind Spanish got a hard "g" attached (as it's common in words starting with "ui" and "ue""), then dropped the "u" entirely; the emd of the name opened to "iam" in English, while in Spanish the "l" turned to "r", then got a vowel attached to the end for ease of pronunciation (elm->erme), then the vowel at the end got changed to sound properly masculine. 3:08 the main issue would be taking "John" as the base instead of the Latin "Johannes", so "Jo" to "Gio", "h" to "v" and "es" to "i" (that last one mimmicking their choice of plural formation) 4:41 more like ee-VAN, which makes more sense.
I have an uncle Jack. Imagine my aunt’s confusion when, after a motorcycle accident, the hospital called telling her that John was in the ER. She never knew his given name was John, because everyone called him Jack…they’d been together for YEARS at this point.
"Johannes" is pronounced "Yo-han-es" (you pronounce that final e in German). Its variant is "Johann", also Hans for short. Got lots of those in my family tree! You may also want to do a video on "Joseph".
Eoin is also an Irish version of John. With Séan most likely being a curruption of the French Jean. Possibly used by some of the Anglo Normans that pitched up in the country. And Shane is another anglicised variant of Séan.
The english jack makes jaques a translation of john, and most people dont know that! My favorite is the fact that for the name Elisheba/elisabela, english is the only language that kept the E and made it Elizabeth. Other languages made it into isabel/isabelle/isabella, etc
In Modern Hebrew, there’s a shortened version of Yochanan: Chanan. And in English-speaking countries it sometimes gets modified because many English speakers struggle with the Hebrew “ch” sound: Hanan
A friend of mine named Sean, Shawn, or Shaun wouldn't tell me the spelling of his name so I spelled it Sheauwn. He often spells it like that even to this day. He told me the correct spelling once but as I was in a very bad place mentally once upon a time, I have had time to forget the spelling.
Jack is a variation of John? I always thought it's short for or at least comes from Jacob. Btw, for the German version of Johannes: the e is not silent.
I assumed a coworker of mine spelled his name Seamus, but when I saw it spelled Shaymus on his time card I asked him about it. Turns out he never heard of the Irish spelling of his name.
I know this is pedantic, but the last name of the Danish fairytale writer is AndersEn, not -son; it's actually quite telling of him being Danish, as many such "son of" type last names end in -sen and not -son like in English or Swedish.
fun fact, my friend's name is Juan (he isn't Spanish), but it's pronounced closer to the French version "Jean". English-speakers tend to lean to the French pronunciation when they say his name, compared tot he Afrikaans-speakers who use the "hard J".
Of course in Ireland we have Seán and its variations in spelling, but we also have Eoin (Oh-in). This is most notable in the Irish translation of John the Baptist "Eoin Baiste", which someone else in the comments used an example too. And on the note of Sean Bean, it's quite common to mistake his name for the Irish phrase "Sean Bean" (Shan Ban) which means "Old Woman"
In Finland we have the more original name Johannes but also many shortened versions like Hannes or Juha and Jussi. Funny how the same name turns into so many variations but also remains popular in every language. I'd like to see more of this sort of exploration into other names too :)
In Welsh, the name John is Siôn - similar to Irish, just the vowel is more of a long ‘oooo’ sound. My name is the Welsh feminine version of John, so undergoes a central vowel mutation to Siân (‘Shaaan’).
There's also the fact that French versions of John and Jack are Jean and Jacques, which are pronounced very similar except for the last consonant: zhon, zhok.
Great vid! My dad is Dutch, Johann, but due to 3 other living family members sharing the name, they all had a variation. The initial J is pronounced like a Y, so yohann. So grandpa Johann, uncle Jo, cousin Hans and my dad was the youngest so he got Kleine Hans, or little Hans. When they came to Australia, my dad decided John was the way to go. I do think this video would have been improved if you'd said all those names in the accent of the language they were in, the links become much clearer.
Just a note on the name "Ivan", I believe in Russian it has stress on the 2nd syllable, And has different vowel sounds, Making it almost rhyme with "John".
In French records from the 1500s and 1600s Jean is often Jehan, which is just one step away from either Johan or John. I also see Marye in this same time period, which went into English as Mary and French as Marie. You didn’t comment on Gianni, is it the same name as Giovanni / John? Nice vid.
"Ivan" also makes sense as the Russian version of John when taking into consideration that historically V and W sounds would switch around between languages. "Ivan" could have at some point morphed from something like "Iwan" in an older language, which could also have morphed from something that sounded more like "Iuan".
I have a theory that many unexplained words are actually pictures you make with your tongue. The D sound in dog is high in the front and low in the back to represent the head and tail of the dog. The og is made with your tongue in an arc to represent the front and back legs. The word donkey is made with the same shape, but with the added hee at the end to represent the donkey’s sound. The donkey is naturally the same basic shape as a dog.
quite of a coincidence is that juan and ivan (at least in old spanish) might be pronounced the same way. i mean, j and i in old times used to represent the same sound, just like the u and v where were interchangeable. so, it could be possible that in some period of time, someone named Juan could write his name as Ivan, and still be pronounced /xuan/
Isn't Jack borrowed from french Jacques, which is a considered the equivalent of Jacob (or, since we're talking about names that are dissimilar but of common origin, James) rather than John!?
I think the funniest is John moves into irish/Gaelic languages as Sean, then when the English heard Irish say their names, they thought (because of accent) they were saying Shane... hence John goes to Shane through Sean...
Irish also has the name Eoin [Owen/Eoghan/Oeghan] for John. Eoin is usually used for John itself (e.g, John the Baptist is "Eoin Baiste"), while Seán is used much like Jack in English; a pet name of sorts. Seán and Eoin both still mean John and are extremely common names here in Ireland.
I find it interesting how there are some names that sound like they'd be related, But aren't, For example "Evan" is a form of John, But "Ewan" is actually unrelated. You can even have multiple etymologies of the same name, "Owen" can apparently be derived from the Welsh "Owain" (Which, Supposedly, Some Breton forms of sound rather similar to "Ivan" despite being unrelated, although I can't confirm that), Or from the Irish "Eoghan" (Which is actually related to Ewan).
An interesting fact about "Jack," is that was commonly used as a nickname for someone whose name was not known, which is why the page character in a deck of cards is called "Jack," the personification of cold weather is named "Jack Frost," and the face on a pumpkin lantern is called a "Jack-o-Lantern," (all called this because they had no other established name). The snack Cracker-Jacks got its name from a customer who, after trying it, told its inventor "That's cracker, Jack." ("Cracker" meant "good.") "John" is also commonly used as a nickname for an unnamed person, such as using "John Doe" to refer to an unidentified body or a person with amnesia, or "John" being a term for an anonymous customer of a sex worker.
In the United States we get confusing past references to "Jack" or "Jackie" Kennedy meaning our president John F Kennedy whose wife was named Jacquie Kennedy. Apparently in the 1960's Jackie was understood to mean John.
Portuguese (my native language) has João, but it also "imported" translations from other latin languages: Giovane (or variations of it), Guilherme, and even John - at least in Brazil it is allowed and I've met people with these names. Also William, Juan...
I figured Jack was a form of John when I learned the nursery rhymes where the french version says "frere Jacques, frere Jacques" and the english says "brother john, brother john" and Jacques sounds way closer to Jack than John. Then when I learned the term friar it made even more sense.
Shane and Ian. Our family had 3 cousins named Shane, Ian, and John. I thought it was fascinating that they all have the same meaning, while only sharing an N.
I’d like to see the antonym of “pervert”, i.e. words/names doing the reverse of being perverted to mean something bad, thus they’re bad words/names that’re being turned into good words/names.
Ever notice that if you use only traditional Latin letters, then Juan and Ivan are spelled the same? Evan is a Welsh variant of John. But Ewan and Owen are unrelated. A name that isn't related to John is Jonathon, which derives from a different Hebrew name. But it can be shortened to Jon. So John and Jon are NOT the same.
Jack being a nickname for John makes sense in a way (unlike the whole Margaret to Peggy thing) For a famous Jack, I've got to go with Jack Nicholson, whose full name is John Joseph Nicholson
I’ve known a few people with Irish heritage with the name sean, and for some reason they said their name was pronounced (To my Australian English ears.) more like Ian. (She-an).
Suggest a topic for next Monday's video!
Coptic
Unique Animal Names Patrick
Michael or Evan.
Shoe names or names of the Loud Siblings.
Fun fact: the British comedic icon Mr Bean in the Polish translation is Jaś Fasola (John Bean)
Fun fact: When you write JUAN in the original Latin alphabet, it is written as IVAN because there's no J and U then.
Yes, exactly. But I think that the proper translation of Juan in latin is "Ivonnes" or something like that
and now i see how JUAN = IVAN cool
The letter J comes from the letter I, and the letter U comes from V in Latin.
Those were originally variations of such letters in late Latin.
Moscow is the third Rome, according to the Russian Orthodox Church. lol
At least for the "I" part, the German Johannes was written as Ioannes up to the middle ages, too.
It should have been mentioned that many if not most versions of that name aren't directly derived from Hebrew, but from the Greek version, "Ioannis", which became "Iohannes" in Latin. That was usually the template.
The unabbreviated German version "Johannes" basically adopted the latter 1:1 with a minor spelling adjustment, but there are versions of the authentic "Yohannis" in multiple languages.
Your John, Jan, Janos, Yannik, Ivan, Juan, Evan, Hans or Hannes are all shortened versions, often originally nicknames.
Yes, and the final -s was added on in Greek to many names for grammatical reasons only relevant in Greek. That's how Jonah became Jonas, Yehoshua became Jesus, Moshe became Moses, and Yochanon became Ioannes. And several more Eliyahu/Elias, so on and so forth.
Thanks for mentioning this
Greek name Ioannis has an Eta letter as previous-to-last, which sounds as "i" bow, but in ancient times sounded another way, and hence was transliterated as "e" in Latin.
Yeah, so strange that he didn't talk about any of this. People who watch that video without further explanation will think that John is an originally English name 😒
Even a stranger translation is the Arabic Yahya, which is the Quranic name for John the Baptist. Yahya is also a common name in the Muslim world
as far as I know it's not a translation but just an already existing name which was kinda substituted
The one used by arab christians is Yuhanna or Youhanna.
@Tennis932000 Another name derived from Yuhanna is Hanna which to me sounds a little bit similar to german hans. There are also all sorts of variations which were the result of translating the name to other languages and then back to Arabic like Yuhannun, Hannun and Hinnawy.
I believe the same thing can be seen with other historical and biblical names like Mary which Maryam, Maryaam, Maari, are Maraam all have the same origin.
@@Nobody_Cares913 Correct, it's not a translation, but it's also not a commonly used name before it was revealed to be a prophet's name.
Yohanan actually has a cognate in Arabic, same with Yahya in Hebrew. It might have just been that way since prophets often had multiple names/titles. Like Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was also known as Ahmad. Yohnaan (God bestowed grace/mercy) might have been what he was called in the day, but his name in Arabic was Yahya (he lives), referencing that he was martyred and isn't truly dead according to our beliefs.
@@sujotheperson9803 All of which trace to Miriam.
I remember having my mind blown the day I put together that Henry = Enrique.
Yes and Enrique Iglesias is Henry the Church man
Same for me with Henry - Heinrich - Jindřich.
(I knew Jindřich and Henry are the same name, but Heinrich helped me realise how they are related, despite being so different)
My own name is Erich. I was very surprised when I realized I'm kind of named Henry.
@@erich_ika After a quick research it seems Erich and Heinrich have two different origins, sorry.
Isn't there also Ian? And Jan? And there definitely is Yiannis in Greek (Γιάννης), and there are boatloads of them in Greece.
Jep, as a person called Yannis, I can confirm. And there are a ton of other spelling ranging from Giannis to Janis
Yup! Even the original "Johanan" is transcribed with a Y. J being pronounced the way it is in English is a rather peculiar phenomenon overall.
Ian is Scottish
Jan is Slavic like Polish
I was going to comment about Jan and Ian here as well!
Ian is the Americanized version of Iain, and that is the Scottish version of John. Jan is the German version of Ian
Hank actually started out as a medieval diminutive of John. Hank essentially developed from Hankin where by “Han” was short for Johan (a German and Scandinavian form of John) and “-kin” was a Middle English diminutive suffix
The blogbrothers mentioned this in a video, because obviously
That actually makes more sense than Hank being somehow short for Henry,.
I have endless fun watching non-Portuguese-speakers try to pronounce our version of John: João
With Portuguese, I find it helpful to remember that the ~ sign comes from an abbreviation for N, and letters like ã and õ mean that there used to be an actual n following the letter, but now you need to just hint at it by adding a nasal throat closing to the word.
"Ivan" sounds nothing like John, partly because you pronounced it the way English speakers say the name instead of the native way. The way native speakers say it is pretty close to the way English speakers say the (unrelated?) name "Yvonne", and isn't so far away from the Greek version which influenced much of the Slavic world through the Orthodox Churches.
It also sounds similar to gaelic Ewan, like Ewan McGregor
if so sean evans is john johns
And - surprise - Yvonne relates to Yves/Ivo relates to Ivan and thus finally to John 😊
Here in Latvia we have name Jānis, which is also one of the most popular names in our country. Also we have summer solstice holidays named after this name, called Jāņi.
The hungarian version is János, and the diminutive of that is Jani
In parts of former Yugoslavia, the name John can be either Ivan, Jovan, or Jahja depending on which religion you follow.
Jahja gang 💪
No Yahya?
@@barryirlandi4217
It's spelled Jahja instead but pronounced the same
My great grandpa was greek-catholic and he used both Jan and Ivan
Jovaaaano, Jovaaaankeeee...
Ian. Owen. Owain. Ewen. Jan. But not Jonathan. (Heb Yonatan, G-d has given)
Greek Iannos or Yannos, from which most European variants come. Also Slavonic diminutive Janusz (to use the Polish/Czech/Slovak spelling).
You mention Guillermo but not Guillaume. Have you forgotten 1066? And from Guillaume, possibly Guy.
Elchanon, Chananiel, Chananijah - all Hebrew and Biblical variants of the same meaning.
It was a general method of creating names in many Semitic cultures. Hence, in Carthaginian Phonecian, we find Hannibal, in native form Chananba'al, "Ba'al is gracious"
Mind blown. I know about the other variants, but the Latinized spelling of Hannibal completely disguised that to me.
You also have Kaloyan, which is literally "beautiful Yan"
So Sean John “Diddy” Combs is actually “Iohannes Iohannes Combs.” 😂🤣
4:17 : "the russian language does not have any sound like "J".
Russian language : hold my ж
Nice joke:)
Actually, the letter Ж sounds like J in French or Portuguese, English J is transcribed as ДЖ.
@@konstkaras I always find it stupid that in English, ж is translitterated as "zh", which most just pronounce as a regular "z", which makes stupid things like "Marshall Zukov", "Wagner's chief Prigozin",... but "Djukov" would be silly as well.
In French (I'm French BTW), most translitterations are OK ("Joukov" makes the right sound), ы and х do not really exist, so "y" and "kh" are OK as translitterations. The one I really do not like is щ as "chtch" because it's a mouthful, when we could use "sch" (ш being rendered as "ch" and ч as "tch")
@@takix2007 any way to write a sound lacking in language is a compromise, so it can't be perfect. Writing Ж as zh seems reasonable: it differs from sh the same way z differs from s.
Isn't it John one of the odd one out, though, thus making it unfair that other versions "sound nothing like it"? You correctly say that it comes from Yochanan. I may add that it came to England via the Hellenized version Ioannes. Neither start with a J sound, nor are only one syllable. Johannes, Giovanni, Ivanos are all much closer to the origin of the name than John is.
Yeah, as an italian I was a bit frustrated. "Giovanni sounds nothing like John", why should it? It's much more closely related to the Greek version
At times he was talking like all the other versions were derived from English, I really don't like this superficiality.
Also the pronounciations! "Ivan sounds nothing like John", well aside from the fact that it must resemble the Greek version, it's because differently from the majority of other languages, english speakers read IVAN as AIVEN...
Hello ´from Denmark.
*Jan* and *Jens* are two importatn variants, along with those you mentioned, *Johannes, Hans, Johan, Jon* etc.
*Jens* is important because it is the basis for the most popular last name *Jensen* . *Hansen* is the third most popular, and *Johansen* no 18.
The actress Scarlett Johansson's father has a danish background, but the name Johansson has the Swedish-English - son variant.
That guy Yochanan the babtist was aparently very popular.
I always assumed Jack was for James as in French Jacques or Italian Giacomo
if you write Juan in classical latin script it would be IVAN
In College I had a few classmates that where all named John in different languages. João Victor (portuguese), John Weslley (english), Yohran (russian) and Juan (spanish), although all of them where brazilian. Also, later, when doing my masters, there was a guy called Geovan, i'd presume that makes it 5.
Dutch: Johannes, Johan, Jannes, Jan, Sjaak (from Jack)
Hungarian: János
A Mohawk version of John is Shawátis (saw-wAH-diss). It comes from the common French Jesuit name of Jean Baptiste. Jean was translated to “Sha”and Baptiste is translated into “Watis” (Mohawk doesn’t have “b” and “p” sounds).
The letter J is actually the newest letter in the “alphabet” this why a lot of Germanic and romantic languages have different uses for it. It evolved from the letter I and Y(kinda).
Reminds of the Storyteller cartoon series from years ago : " I have many stories, tales for both the young and old.
I have many voices to describe many places.
Many names have I, and many faces…
In Russia I am Ivan; in Sweden I am Jan. In Germany I’m Johan; in America, I’m John.
From my many travels, I have gathered these tales, to teach you good sense, when all else fails…
Sometimes there are tears, sometimes there is laughter…”
I really liked the poetic slant it takes. Thanks for sharing
Wow, this brings back memories! I watched it when I was little.
This! I was going to comment the same thing! I used to love that programme.😅
That song played in my head when I read the video title. 😀
As someone named Jack, I knew the origin of the name because Ive had a lot of people ask me if my “real name” was John. I always got angry at this as a kid but now I don’t care. It can be a good conversation starter, you’d be surprised how many people know the origin of their own name
If you think John’s translations are weird, wait until you see the ones for James. There are things like Diego, Jacobo and Thiago in the mix
The other day I was thinking about the the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and it sounds so exotic in English until you realize his name is Joe Green. He sounds like a vegetable farmer.
We're a cross-cultural family, and my father-in-law's name is Shan or 山 in Mandarin. And so when we thinking about names when my wife was pregnant, my mom suggested Shawn after his grandfather, and we went with that spelling because it vaguely looks like Sha山n.
In Swahili, especially the Swahili translation of the Bible, the name John is known in Swahili as Yohana
In swedish we have the names of Jonas, Johan and Jan my guess is that they all are shortening of johannes. We also have the female names of Johanna and Hanna and Anna that all is female versions of shortening of Johannes
Anna and Hanna more likely derive from Hebrew Chana. But Joanna, Joanne, Juana, Juanita, Jeanne, etc are certainly "Johns"
Hanna is both a shortening of Johanna and a name derived from channā according to the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore. Thought it was the same with Anna but Anna is just a Swedish version of channā like you said
Jonas is not John, it is the prophet Jona, the guy in the whale.
In Dutch very similar, but we aditionally have female names like An, Ann or Hanne (often mixed with Lore to form Hannelore), being even shorter.
Another weird translation of John is polish Janusz. I often see people who think its English equivalent is Jason, not knowing it is just a fancy, extended version of Polish’s regular translation of John - Jan.
Janusz to od węgierskigo Jana
Another form of John that I find interesting is Jovan which is a very common name in the South Slavic languages.
James, Jacob, Thiago, Santiago, Diego and many others are all the same name. That's a good subject for a video.
Jakow
Why the gap on the thumbnail? I can see Giovanni in the orange suit and Skellington, but just nothing in the middle of them!
According to Wikipedia Stalins correct name was Iossif Wissarionowitsch Dschugaschwili.
Ioseb looks to be Georgian variant while Ios(s)if is Russian (second S in neither written or pronounced in Russian, just not to be pronounced as [z])
yes stalin is a diminutive of his surname
So the French version Jean came into Irish as Seán which you mentioned. But another name in Ireland: Eógan also spelled Eóghan usually spelled Owen or Eoin in English is also an Irish variant of John. This name may be related to the Welsh name Owain. In Scotland the name Seán was very popular (Seán Connery for example), but a name based on the vocative version of Seán: Ian/Iain, is probably more popular today and also related to John. In Northern Ireland the name Seán is often spelled Séan and pronounced like Shane and spelled that way in English but comes from the same name. Welsh names Sion (also spelled Shôn) and Iefan (anglicized as Evan) are considered variants of John. In Scotland a variant spelling of Eoin as Eathain can be found mostly in the Highlands and western islands. Another related Scottish name Ewan is also considered a variant of John.
In Donegal (Ireland) Eoghan (Aawn) and Eoin (Owen) were different names, my grandmother recalled brothers called Eoghan and Eoin.
@@aisling1551 That's very interesting. Thank you for that info!
John has been ယောဟန် (yaw han) for bible translation and poetry and literature in Myanmar. Otherwise, ဂျွန် (jun) is widely used.
Thanks for this vid! I just realized that the name of John in chinese yue1han4 約翰, is actually a transliteration of the german version johannes. I always thought i was because of some weird chinese acccent XD
In modern Chinese of Catholics, John is transliterated as 若望, which is evidently corresponding to Italian GIOVANNI.
Other Johns: French Jean, Dutch Jan.
1:05 if you put German Wilhelm in the middle (and take into account that that one too is an evolution from the original), it makes more sense: the "W" either was read as a "b" like in modern German and turned into a hard "g" in Spanish and a regular "w" in English, or was read as a semivowel like in English and ind Spanish got a hard "g" attached (as it's common in words starting with "ui" and "ue""), then dropped the "u" entirely; the emd of the name opened to "iam" in English, while in Spanish the "l" turned to "r", then got a vowel attached to the end for ease of pronunciation (elm->erme), then the vowel at the end got changed to sound properly masculine.
3:08 the main issue would be taking "John" as the base instead of the Latin "Johannes", so "Jo" to "Gio", "h" to "v" and "es" to "i" (that last one mimmicking their choice of plural formation)
4:41 more like ee-VAN, which makes more sense.
I have an uncle Jack. Imagine my aunt’s confusion when, after a motorcycle accident, the hospital called telling her that John was in the ER. She never knew his given name was John, because everyone called him Jack…they’d been together for YEARS at this point.
Guillermo is pronounced gee-YER-mo!
and Johannes has 3 syllables, not 2
"Johannes" is pronounced "Yo-han-es" (you pronounce that final e in German). Its variant is "Johann", also Hans for short. Got lots of those in my family tree! You may also want to do a video on "Joseph".
Eoin is also an Irish version of John. With Séan most likely being a curruption of the French Jean. Possibly used by some of the Anglo Normans that pitched up in the country. And Shane is another anglicised variant of Séan.
Addendum to Hans: this is also the origin (I believe) of the common Czech name Honza, a lot more “different” than the other common Czech form “Jan”
So Hank comes from a variation of Han so yes, John and Hank Green are both technically John’s
The english jack makes jaques a translation of john, and most people dont know that!
My favorite is the fact that for the name Elisheba/elisabela, english is the only language that kept the E and made it Elizabeth. Other languages made it into isabel/isabelle/isabella, etc
In Modern Hebrew, there’s a shortened version of Yochanan: Chanan. And in English-speaking countries it sometimes gets modified because many English speakers struggle with the Hebrew “ch” sound: Hanan
A friend of mine named Sean, Shawn, or Shaun wouldn't tell me the spelling of his name so I spelled it Sheauwn. He often spells it like that even to this day. He told me the correct spelling once but as I was in a very bad place mentally once upon a time, I have had time to forget the spelling.
Brilliant!
Jack is a variation of John? I always thought it's short for or at least comes from Jacob.
Btw, for the German version of Johannes: the e is not silent.
I assumed a coworker of mine spelled his name Seamus, but when I saw it spelled Shaymus on his time card I asked him about it. Turns out he never heard of the Irish spelling of his name.
I know this is pedantic, but the last name of the Danish fairytale writer is AndersEn, not -son; it's actually quite telling of him being Danish, as many such "son of" type last names end in -sen and not -son like in English or Swedish.
I think, Jack is a variation of James, a shortened form of Jacob. As James is also Tiago, hence Santiago (St. James), Diego, Jacob. Am i right?
I think you're right.
French: Jacques
fun fact, my friend's name is Juan (he isn't Spanish), but it's pronounced closer to the French version "Jean". English-speakers tend to lean to the French pronunciation when they say his name, compared tot he Afrikaans-speakers who use the "hard J".
Of course in Ireland we have Seán and its variations in spelling, but we also have Eoin (Oh-in). This is most notable in the Irish translation of John the Baptist "Eoin Baiste", which someone else in the comments used an example too.
And on the note of Sean Bean, it's quite common to mistake his name for the Irish phrase "Sean Bean" (Shan Ban) which means "Old Woman"
for more variations:
Atlas Pro has a video regarding this. the title is "The most common name nobody knows"
Hey, this was my suggestion! This is one of the most intriguing names.
In Finland we have the more original name Johannes but also many shortened versions like Hannes or Juha and Jussi. Funny how the same name turns into so many variations but also remains popular in every language. I'd like to see more of this sort of exploration into other names too :)
In Welsh, the name John is Siôn - similar to Irish, just the vowel is more of a long ‘oooo’ sound. My name is the Welsh feminine version of John, so undergoes a central vowel mutation to Siân (‘Shaaan’).
Written in Latin, the Spanish "Juan" and the Russian "Ivan" would look exactly the same.
Another Irish version for John is “Eoin”
6:00 no. Jack is from the name "Jacob", completely unrelated to John.
JFK's pet name was Jack.
Jack Kennedy was what his closest colegues referred to him as
John = Jack
Robert = Bobby
Edward = Ted and Teddy
In French, Jean-Jaques is a common name combination. Could the Jack nickname have come from anglicizing this into John-Jack?
My uncle John was known to everyone as Jack.
@@PuzzledMonkeyfunny thing, "King James of England" is rendered as "le roi Jacques d'Angleterre" in French...
@@takix2007 that's because James is the English version of Jacob (somehow related to Italian Giacomo).
There's also the fact that French versions of John and Jack are Jean and Jacques, which are pronounced very similar except for the last consonant: zhon, zhok.
Great vid! My dad is Dutch, Johann, but due to 3 other living family members sharing the name, they all had a variation. The initial J is pronounced like a Y, so yohann. So grandpa Johann, uncle Jo, cousin Hans and my dad was the youngest so he got Kleine Hans, or little Hans. When they came to Australia, my dad decided John was the way to go. I do think this video would have been improved if you'd said all those names in the accent of the language they were in, the links become much clearer.
Just a note on the name "Ivan", I believe in Russian it has stress on the 2nd syllable, And has different vowel sounds, Making it almost rhyme with "John".
The Swahili one is loosely based from the German name Johannes, when Ludwig Krapf, a German missionary was translating the Bible into Swahili
In French records from the 1500s and 1600s Jean is often Jehan, which is just one step away from either Johan or John. I also see Marye in this same time period, which went into English as Mary and French as Marie.
You didn’t comment on Gianni, is it the same name as Giovanni / John? Nice vid.
I thought Johannes is pronounced Yo-hahn-es unless there's two ways of saying this name...
Persian form of John is Yahya, an abbreviated form of Yohannan
The Scottish form of John is Iain, which is often anglicized as Ian.
Also, the 1st i in Giovanni is actually silent.
In Irish it's 'Seán', not 'Sean' which is a different word entirely
Hans Hansen
Ivan Ivanovic
"Ivan" also makes sense as the Russian version of John when taking into consideration that historically V and W sounds would switch around between languages. "Ivan" could have at some point morphed from something like "Iwan" in an older language, which could also have morphed from something that sounded more like "Iuan".
I have a theory that many unexplained words are actually pictures you make with your tongue. The D sound in dog is high in the front and low in the back to represent the head and tail of the dog. The og is made with your tongue in an arc to represent the front and back legs. The word donkey is made with the same shape, but with the added hee at the end to represent the donkey’s sound. The donkey is naturally the same basic shape as a dog.
quite of a coincidence is that juan and ivan (at least in old spanish) might be pronounced the same way. i mean, j and i in old times used to represent the same sound, just like the u and v where were interchangeable. so, it could be possible that in some period of time, someone named Juan could write his name as Ivan, and still be pronounced /xuan/
Isn't Jack borrowed from french Jacques, which is a considered the equivalent of Jacob (or, since we're talking about names that are dissimilar but of common origin, James) rather than John!?
I think the funniest is John moves into irish/Gaelic languages as Sean, then when the English heard Irish say their names, they thought (because of accent) they were saying Shane... hence John goes to Shane through Sean...
I've followed your channel a long time and I don't think I can remember you ever present on camera before.
Here in Italy we actually have both Giovanni and Ivan/Ivano as names, never realized they had the same root
Irish also has the name Eoin [Owen/Eoghan/Oeghan] for John. Eoin is usually used for John itself (e.g, John the Baptist is "Eoin Baiste"), while Seán is used much like Jack in English; a pet name of sorts. Seán and Eoin both still mean John and are extremely common names here in Ireland.
I find it interesting how there are some names that sound like they'd be related, But aren't, For example "Evan" is a form of John, But "Ewan" is actually unrelated. You can even have multiple etymologies of the same name, "Owen" can apparently be derived from the Welsh "Owain" (Which, Supposedly, Some Breton forms of sound rather similar to "Ivan" despite being unrelated, although I can't confirm that), Or from the Irish "Eoghan" (Which is actually related to Ewan).
English originated names meaning friend
Alvin
Baldwin
Godwin
Manwin
Oswin
Wolfwin
An interesting fact about "Jack," is that was commonly used as a nickname for someone whose name was not known, which is why the page character in a deck of cards is called "Jack," the personification of cold weather is named "Jack Frost," and the face on a pumpkin lantern is called a "Jack-o-Lantern," (all called this because they had no other established name). The snack Cracker-Jacks got its name from a customer who, after trying it, told its inventor "That's cracker, Jack." ("Cracker" meant "good.")
"John" is also commonly used as a nickname for an unnamed person, such as using "John Doe" to refer to an unidentified body or a person with amnesia, or "John" being a term for an anonymous customer of a sex worker.
In the United States we get confusing past references to "Jack" or "Jackie" Kennedy meaning our president John F Kennedy whose wife was named Jacquie Kennedy. Apparently in the 1960's Jackie was understood to mean John.
Portuguese (my native language) has João, but it also "imported" translations from other latin languages:
Giovane (or variations of it), Guilherme, and even John - at least in Brazil it is allowed and I've met people with these names.
Also William, Juan...
Johnathan is a popular name
Me: "I love Colonel John Landa."
Everyone: "Did you mean Hans Landa?"
Me: "Watch this video."
Everyone: "Oh..."
Me: "That's a bingo!"
I'm a Jack, but as I work with the elderly, they often ask if I'm legally a John or Jonathan.
My brother gets the same thing as a Ben.
I figured Jack was a form of John when I learned the nursery rhymes where the french version says "frere Jacques, frere Jacques" and the english says "brother john, brother john" and Jacques sounds way closer to Jack than John. Then when I learned the term friar it made even more sense.
as a John I think this is the most John video I saw in a while
Shane and Ian. Our family had 3 cousins named Shane, Ian, and John. I thought it was fascinating that they all have the same meaning, while only sharing an N.
In Sweden we have Johan, Johannes, Jon, Jan, Hans etc. So quite many variations. I am surely missing some as well. Swedes let me know
In the middle ages, Johannes got shortened to Jehan in western Europe, giving us the French Jean and the Dutch Jan.
I’d like to see the antonym of “pervert”, i.e. words/names doing the reverse of being perverted to mean something bad, thus they’re bad words/names that’re being turned into good words/names.
Ever notice that if you use only traditional Latin letters, then Juan and Ivan are spelled the same?
Evan is a Welsh variant of John. But Ewan and Owen are unrelated.
A name that isn't related to John is Jonathon, which derives from a different Hebrew name. But it can be shortened to Jon. So John and Jon are NOT the same.
What about 'Ian'? It it related to German 'Jan' another short for 'Johannes'?
I have heard that Ian is another alternate version of John from the British Isles, mostly Gaelic origins.
I heard a theory that Jack is related to Jaques. Considering all the involvement between England and France, that makes sense.
Jack being a nickname for John makes sense in a way (unlike the whole Margaret to Peggy thing)
For a famous Jack, I've got to go with Jack Nicholson, whose full name is John Joseph Nicholson
Actually the phonetic change into Hans is more extreme, as it is pronounced Yo-han-ness, in the full form.
I’ve known a few people with Irish heritage with the name sean, and for some reason they said their name was pronounced (To my Australian English ears.) more like Ian. (She-an).
Obsessed with the way this man speaks. What is the manner in which you end the word called?