Talk:John (given name)

message: The Bosnian version of 'John' should be Jahja, as in Jahja Fehratović, as Bosnian equivalents of Biblical/Quranic names use the Arabic or Turkish version.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gradanin (talk • contribs) 09:14, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Bosnian version of John

message: Who put Klingons into the Origins section? Sicherman (talk) 14:32, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Fire Photon Torpedoes!

message: You should add "Yahya", its Turkish relative, to the related names section.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.253.194.240 (talk) 19:41, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Yahya

message: Please comment on the new in a nutshell thing in the article  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.78.37.8 (talk) 21:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well there is no precedent for using that template on an article nor on any non-project pages, so I'm inclined to revert it. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 21:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: In A Nutshell

message: 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)
replies: text: Eh? How does James=Jacobus lead to a confusion of either of these names with John? —Tamfang (talk) 07:34, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: People called John are often given the nickname Jack. Dabbler (talk) 20:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Jacob/Jakob/Yakov

message: 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)
thread_title:  Other forms of the name John 

message: 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)
replies: text: Why do some names get included but not others? That's bias... ∞ΣɛÞ² (τ|c) 04:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: John as a first name

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  Slavic ones 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  I see what you mean, and I agree with your latest change. -- Nike 03:54, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Transliterations

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Question

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

message: sean redirects.  Why?
shaun
shawn Hopiakuta 01:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  Whether this is a case of it or not, isn't it impossible for a name to have a biblical source if it was used in an area prior to christianity being known in that area?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 05:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Sean]]

message: :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)
thread_title:  Citations 

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

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: what about "prozesshansel", though? Yaan (talk) 12:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Hansel" as a diminutive form 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Ieuan and "Y" Johns 

message: 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)
replies: text: The Anglo-Saxon John was Johan which is why the h is still in the English John. ````  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brixtonboy (talk • contribs) 12:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know for sure, but I don't think this name was used as a personal name by the English before the coming of the Normans, who brought their forms of the name (like Jehan). The etymologist P.H. Reaney in his English Surnames doesn't even mention an Old English form of the name, like he does for many of the other mediaeval personal names. The earliest British form of the given name he lists are the Latin forms and then the Old French forms: all from the 12th and 13th centuries. It'd be interesting to see when the first 'John' was recorded in Britain. I bet it'd be an Anglo-Norman of some sort, or someone of Continental origin.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 23:48, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Old English version 

message: There are numerous pages for the name John as expressed in other languages.  Since the origin and root of the name is the same, the pages all say the same thing.  It would be much more efficient for all those pages to be merged here, with cross-references from a disambiguation page.  No need for such tremendous duplication.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.154.76 (talk) 13:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  Variations of the same name, such as "jon", are one thing but foreign language equivalents are an entirely different matter.  Also, the pages are far from "all the same thing" as each one contains links to persons with that name.  The pages should remain separate, IMO.--ThaddeusB (talk) 14:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The presence of the sections Other language forms and Forms and transliterations in this article demonstrates that foreign language equivalents are not "an entirely different matter." If they were, then those sections would not be in the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.76.131.48 (talk) 16:52, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Woah there, watch what you're merging. If you check the Jonathan article you'll see that it looks like John but has a completely different root and is not the same thing at all. Also Jon is both the shortened form of Jonathan, and an alt spelling of John so belongs equally in either article. You'd have to check all the other language John's to find out if they root with Jonathan or John.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.90.152.89 (talk) 18:05, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Quite so. But that's not a counterargument to the proposition that we don't need twenty articles saying that and Ivan comes from Yohanon and Juan comes from Yohanon and Seán comes from Yohanon, with all the religious history repeated. —Tamfang (talk) 07:17, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge "John" names from multiple languages 

message: Perhaps it should be mentioned that there was once a practice of naming two sons John (the plausible explanation being that one would be named after the Baptist, and the other after the Evangelist). I wouldn’t know where to put it in the article, but I’m sure an someone else would know more details about the practice (such as when and where it was prevalent) than I. -BRPXQZME (talk) 22:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  John (elder and younger) 

message: Paras 2 and 3 talk about two different Johns, the fisherman son of Zebedee who wrote the gospel and a later Ionnes who wrote Revelations. I thought most academic opinion was that they were the same, that it was the gospel writer having visions in prison in old age who 'saw' the Revelations. Any ideas before I amend the article?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brixtonboy (talk • contribs) 12:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Author of Gospel of John and Revelations 

message: The following section was in the article Seán. Since this piece of history is common, I think its proper place is in  this article. However the text is unreferenced, therefore I am moving it to the talk page, rather than to article, for verification and possible merge, by  knowledgeable people. Lorem Ip (talk) 00:14, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  A text from "Sean"  

message: What about female name versions?? Why there is no one single in the table???--Kennechten (talk) 14:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Female

message: : John is the most popular name in the United States, borne as a first or middle name by 39.93 people per thousand; of these, 72.86% have it as the first name.  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 second sentence implies that the 39.93 comes from a sample.  Who compiled that sample?  Does the size of the sample justify four digits? —Tamfang (talk) 07:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  samples vs totals 

message: yes he signed the magna carta, but I think it is more important to mention the reasons he had to sign it. He lost most of his lands, his barons rebelled, and he was unpopular during his lifetime, and infamous now. 98.206.155.53 (talk) 06:45, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  King John 

message: Some research suggested to me that the Hebrew word , when used as a property of Yahweh as in , is most commonly translated as "(is) gracious" (e.g. Psalms 103:8, Psalms 111:4, Jona 4:2). This is the translation systematically found in the KJV (see e.g. here) as well as the only translation given in Strong's Concordance. It is also the translation used by Chabad.org (see e.g. here), so this is not specific to Christianity. However, an anonymous IP insists on changing this to "generous", with the argument that this is the most accurate translation. However, I could not find any sources backing this translation. What now?  --Lambiam 01:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of Hebrew {{Script/Hebrew|חנן}} 

message: Why do people keep deleting "Jón (Icelandig and Faroese)"?! That name is clearly etymologically related to John and widely used in Iceland (for example Jón Sigurðsson) and the Faroe Islands. It's getting annoying. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:06, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jón (Icelandic and Faroese) 

message: Translation into english is systematic as Gracious. Example, be gracious-יְחָנֵּנוּ. However, see https://he.wiktionary.org/wiki/חנן, speaks of "pardon"... While the correct translation would be "showing kindness". Coneptually, "because of his kindness, he has shown us mercy"!
More to the point, correctly, חן is the Hebrew/Biblical term that translates to Grace. Comments?--Connection (talk) 10:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Challenge: Correct Etymology 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Luan is the only related name on the list that starts with L, and I couldn't find any information about it online. Luan is just a dab page, not a name article. Is this actually related to John? Benny White (talk) 14:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed Luan along with a slew of other cruft and poorer additions from the over-crowded infobox. Agree it was very dubious. JesseRafe (talk) 16:32, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Luan? 

message: Given that  is a thing, a never-ending list of Johns looks like a waste of space.  Talk me out of chopping it.  —Tamfang (talk) 22:55, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed: the list has little value and needs constant maintenance (deaths and new articles). The Royalty section should be injected into King John. For consistency, the many other lists of given-name-holders should be chopped too, and that would require discussion at a higher level. -- Wire723 (talk) 10:06, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: @Tamfang A week ago you shortened the list. How did you decide which ones to keep? Wire723 (talk) 20:02, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not intending my ruling to be final, I left those whose article titles do not begin with "John…". —Tamfang (talk) 21:11, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

text: I see that some unregistered editor disagrees: "The more the BETTER". —Tamfang (talk) 20:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

text: I'd suggest a list that leads to disambiguation pages for Johns that have the same surname. D9b59b15 (talk) 09:10, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of Johns 

message: List is not long enough to need to be standalone, nor well sourced enough to justify it as is. If not a merger, then a page move should probably happen as "alternate forms" doesn't really explain the scope the way titling it "John in other languages" (or something to that effect) would. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 03:12, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge of [[Alternate forms for the name John]] into [[John (given name)#In other languages]]