Talk:John (first name)

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[edit] Ja[c/k]ob[us][ite] and Jno[.]

This article could really use a section on Jacob/Jakob/Yakov/etc. and the confusion surrounding their supposed relationship to "John" and related names. Due to King James II of England/VII of Scotland taking the name Jacobus in Latin (not apparently being aware of Johannes being Latin for John?), and the subsequent term "Jacobite", the names have been erroneously linked for centuries. Even Wikipedia's founder falls for it: User:Jimbo_Wales/In_many_languages... Really needs some clearing up. There's no etymological connection at all between Jacob and John, but many believe there is. Another noteworthy addition would be about the abbreviation "Jno." earlier just "Jno", really a corruption of "Jn." with the period drawn circularly to look like a small "o". Amateur genealogists very frequently mistake this for an abbreviation of "Jonathan", but it is really short for "John", a difference that can be quite significant, since it was very common in the 1800s and earlier (characterized by what we'd today consider substandard recordkeeping) to have sons/brothers named both John and Jonathan, often several generations of these pairs in a row. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] - 09:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other forms of the name John

The page mentions Hungarian "János". But isn't it the case that János is the Hungarian equivalent of "James"?

It also mentions German "Johannes". Is not "Hans" also a German form of "John"? Consider (for example) Hans Arp.

-- Dominus 18:15, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] John as a first name

Is there any point to this list of people who's first name of John? It can never be complete and seems just plain silly. The Saints, Kings, etc. are already on the John page. If no one objects I'll delete them -R. fiend 19:33, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Did it. -R. fiend 06:02, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Why do some names get included but not others? That's bias... ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 04:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slavic ones

Joy wrote: Evolution of the name John - ah, it goes by descendance... fixed ro entries; moved all slavic ones below old church slavonic, even though this is probably moot
Gilgamesh wrote: Actually, no. The names descended from Old Church Slavonic are mostly Eastern Orthodox (Greek). Most of the Catholic versions are Latin-derived and don't descend from Slavonic.

So then why did you miss Slovak and Croatian as Catholic? :) And in any event, this doesn't have to follow, Old Church Slavonic was used in combination with Glagolitic and that wasn't Orthodox-only. It's quite possible that the Catholics saw Johann or Giovanni prior to the Old Slavonic form (because they migrated westwards a couple of centuries earlier than Cyril &co.), but is it a proven fact? --Joy [shallot] 10:32, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Because the evolution along religious lines isn't consistent. The "Jan" names are generally Catholic in origin, while the "Ivan" names are generally Orthodox in origin. "Jan" was a loan from the Germanic languages and Central Europe, while "Ivan" was derived from the Slavic Rite of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Also note that Polish has both forms, where (if I recall correctly), the Orthodox-derived form is "Iwan" or "Ywan". Sometimes a language can have multiple etymologies of ultimately the same name, as is seen not only in languages like Polish, but also in English (where "Ivan" is not unheard of) and Israeli Hebrew (which has both the traditional "Yochanan" and the Hiberno-English-loaned "Shon"). So, it is not black and white, but rich shades of varying origin. - Gilgamesh 13:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I guess sk and hr would have to be exceptions from the generalizations, too, if they indeed kept Ivan in a separate lineage from Russian, but also originating in old Slavonic (Old Church Slavonic, but not Church Slavonic). And it occurs to me that the Latin/Germanic link threw me off, that shouldn't be merged. --Joy [shallot] 13:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm thinking that this kind of list lacks a bit of chronological context. It seems that ancient Latin may not have had the "h" in "Johannes", but medieval Latin as used in Europe does have it in Germanic-speaking countries... --Joy [shallot] 13:52, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Transliterations

If you look at the whole list, you will see that everywhere that non-Roman script is used, the name is followed by a transliteration in parentheses. This does not mean or imply that the transliterations are "secondary", whatever that means, merely that they are transliterations, for those who cannot read other forms of writing. Why do you insist on making this one line different from the others? -- Nike 05:49, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Because you're missing the point of this whole indentation. Croatian and Slovak did not, as far as I can tell, obtain their "Ivan" by transliterating Russian or Bulgarian "Иван". They transformed the Old Slavonic "Ιωан" concurrently. If this means that they no longer belong in the same entry with Russian and Bulgarian, so be it, but putting "Ivan" in parenthesis next to "Иван", presuming I'm correct of course, is neither consistent nor fair. --Joy [shallot] 17:39, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I see what you mean, and I agree with your latest change. -- Nike 03:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why are transliterations included in a section labelled "evolution of the name John?" Particularly transliterations into the languages of countries where the name John is not used by the native population? While it's possible that migration could introduce the name into places like Japan or Korea at some time in the future, currently, I don't think either of them (being the ones that I know firsthand), or a lot of the other countries really have anything to do with the evolution of the name. Andy Christ 04:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Is there really any reason why this page exists separate from the John page? It seems they can both be covered in the same article without any substantial problems. -R. fiend 05:26, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

John is a disambiguation page, which lists numerous different "johns", mostly people who are named John, and one of which is the name John (name), itself. -- Nike 00:07, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ewan

Is also a derivative name. Much closer to Ivan. Welsh?--Jondel 05:10, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Polish 'Jan'

The Polish name Jan is listed twice in the evolution section. Once derived from Germanic Johannes, Johann, Joann and once from Old Slavonic Ιωан (Ioan). I think this should be united.

[edit] Russian Yana/Яна

The Russian female personal name Ivana, as it is correctly mentioned, is extremely rarely used. Yana, in turn, is a very common name. Also, Armenian "Avanes" and Georgian "Vano" come to mind. 'Vano, Vaniko" might be diminuitive to some other form.

[edit] sean

sean redirects. Why?

shaun

shawn

Hopiakuta 01:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The Latin -> Germanic -> French -> Irish section is all messed up. For one thing, Eóin came to Ireland before the Normans brought in Seán, so it is not "Anglcized", which is utterly ridiculous, being that it's actually gaelicised from the Latin, as I believe that the article used to indicate. I am not aware of Seán being "Scottish Gaelic". Eóin is also found in Scotland, and Iain is a modern Scottish spelling. Ian is the anglicized spelling of Iain. Eathain hardly seems "Anglicized", either. In fact, it seems to be the genitive form of the gaeliciced name of St. John the Apostle, rather than a contemporary first name.[1] --Nike 15:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

This whole article is severely lacking in citations. According to this, Ewan, Evans (family name), Ivan are "English" derived from Russian (!). I thought Evans was an anglicization of Bevan from Welsh ap Evan, and both came from Irish/Scottish Ewan/Eoin, as in MacEoin, MacKeown, etc. I'm wondering if there's some false etymology here ("Oh, A looks like B, so must be descended from it.") I guess that means Brad Park's ancestors hail from Korea. --SigPig |SEND - OVER 09:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

Please see Talk:Ivan#Merger. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 05:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sean again

I cannot create a page for the name Sean as it keep re-directing to John. Why is this? Can someone correct the error. Would do it myself of course but can't seem to, ooops. Cls14 11:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Hansel" as a diminutive form

Shouldn't "Hansel" be described as the English language transliteration of the German diminutive form "Hänsel"? After all, "Hänsel" is a rather typical diminutive construction in German, but that pattern is not used in English, and the German diminutive pattern involves an umlaut of the stressed vowel (see Diminutive#German). I'm not going to edit the text, I'll just throw in this comment and someone more deeply involved in this article can consider changing the text. Khim1 20:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I changed my mind and did change it after all, seeing as this article doesn't appear to be all that well kept. I also removed the reference to "Sean" redirecting to this page, since it doesn't. Khim1 03:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
what about "prozesshansel", though? Yaan (talk) 12:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ieuan and "Y" Johns

I guess this could go on forever... but no mention of Welsh Ieuan (as in Rugby player Ieuan Evans ( = John Johnson)) nor "Y" variants such as Yvan, Yves, Yvonne and Yvette 195.38.93.206 (talk) 09:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old English version

Is there any information on an Anglo-Saxon version of the name John? It seems to me that most Old English translations of scripture would use the Latin form Ioannes or Joannes, and there's little to be found online about any sort of indigenous version. The user-generated content on WikiAnswers.com, however, suggests that Ean is the Anglo-Saxon version of John. This seems reasonable, but I'm just not sure. Does anyone have anything more concrete? Knyght27 (talk) 07:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)