Jonas

Jonas grew out of the Hebrew yona, meaning dove. That word was the name of an Old Testament prophet: told to preach in Nineveh, he ran away by sea, was thrown overboard in a storm and spent three days inside a great fish before he was released, alive and willing to obey. Greek rendered his name Ionas, adding the -s ending Greek masculine names usually carry, and Latin passed that form on to most of Europe. Some English translations of the New Testament keep the Greek spelling, which is why Jonas and Jonah can both appear in English bibles.

English speakers usually know the prophet as Jonah, the spelling that became common after the Reformation, while the Hellenised Jonas was only used now and then in medieval England. On the Continent the picture is reversed: Jonas is the familiar form in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and France. Relatives include Joonas in Finland, Jónas in Iceland, Jonasz in Poland, Giona in Italy, Jonás in Spain and Yunus in Arabic and Turkish. One caution: Lithuanian Jonas is a different name altogether, a form of John, and in Sweden Jonas was sometimes used as a short form of Johannes too, so the origin depends on where a family comes from.

Pronunciation shifts with the language. In Britain most people say JOH-nəs, Germans and Scandinavians say YOH-nas with a Y sound, and the French say zhoh-NAH with the stress at the end. Because it closes on a soft s, Jonas runs smoothly into a middle name that opens with a vowel or a gentle consonant, such as Jonas Elliot or Jonas William. For siblings, other short biblical names like Reuben, Noah or Hannah keep a family feel without matching too closely.