What's In A Name? John

Where does the name John come from? Well, John is an ancient name, going back to Hebrew "Yohanan" (transliterated from Hebrew), "graced by God." Greek took the name as "Ioannes" (transliterated from Greek), which was then borrowed by Latin as "Ioannes," but later spelled as "Iohannes." Christianity popularized the name in much of Europe and it was established in England as "Johannes" during the 1100s. The Normans brought their dialectal forms of the name to England as "Johan/Jehan," with the "J" pronounced as "zh," as in the male name "Jean" (as if, "zhawn") versus the female name "Jean," as if "gene." This brought English to "Jon/John." There are many variations to the name in other languages, although some of those variations are used in English speaking countries in the "foreign form" (for lack of another term), for example, German "Johann/Johannes," Slavic "Ivan," Irish (but commonly used in English) "Sean," and Spanish "Juan."

I consulted the following, so for more information on the name "John," see, "A World Of Baby Names" by Teresa Norman, published by Perigee/Penguin Group, New York, 2003.

WORD HISTORY: 

Mew-This is now an antiquated word, but it is still present in the terms "sea mew" and "mew gull," terms for a "seagull" and a "common gull," both the same general bird. "Mew" goes back to Old Germanic "maigwiz," the word used for such a bird, likely in imitation of the sound made by the bird. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "maew," which then became "mewe," before the modern version. The other Germanic languages have: German "Möwe," Low German Saxon "Meev," West Frisian "miuw," Dutch "meeuw," Icelandic "máfur" (also "mávur"), Danish "måge," Norwegian "måke," Swedish "mås."