Jonathan

Where the name comes from

• Hebrew
  "[Yahweh] has given". BDB: "׳י hath given"; DMNES: "God has given"; Online Etymology Dictionary: "the Lord has given".
  Yehonatan (יְהוֹנָתָן), short form Yonatan (יוֹנָתָן). BDB compares Elnathan, Nethaniah and Nethanel (built on the same "give" element).
  A separate name from John. John is Hebrew Yochanan (יוֹחָנָן), which BDB glosses "[Yahweh] hath been gracious". The two names share the divine-name element but have different verbs, "gave" and "was gracious". "Gift of God" is a popular paraphrase of "[Yahweh] has given".

Jonathan across traditions

• Jewish (Hebrew Bible). About 16 bearers are listed in BDB. The best known is the son of Saul; others include a son of Abiathar, a nephew of David, one of David's heroes, and a Judaite captain after the fall of Jerusalem. The Greek Bible writes the name Ionathan throughout.
• Christian Europe. The Wycliffite Bible (1395) has Jonathan and Jonathas. Middle French Jonatan is recorded in 1572, and Dutch and Walloon Jonathan also occur.
• Anglo-Irish literature. Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin and author of Gulliver's Travels (1726).
• United States. "Brother Jonathan" (1776) was a personification of the United States before Uncle Sam. The popular story of how the nickname began dates only from the mid-1800s and is not supported by the record (etymonline, citing Albert Matthews, 1935). The Jonathan apple variety dates from 1831.
• United States (SSA). 945,420 combined US births, 1950s–2010s: Jonathan 833,323, Johnathan 71,092 and Jonathon 41,005. Peak decade: the 1980s, at #18 among boys (229,953; 271,437 with both spellings). Jonathan by decade: 1950s #128, 1960s #77, 1970s #32, 1980s #18, 1990s #21, 2000s #19, 2010s #42.

Who carried it

• Jonathan, son of Saul (Hebrew Bible): Son of King Saul and friend of David; the first bearer listed in BDB.
• Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667, Dublin – October 19, 1745, Dublin): Anglo-Irish author, foremost prose satirist in English; author of Gulliver's Travels (1726); dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin (from 1713).

Forms in other languages

Johnathan, Jonathon, Jonatan, Yonatan, Yehonatan, Jonathas

Jonathan in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.