Are there ANY good variations on John?

[ladycarlotta]

Guess what, DP and I have a bunch of relatives called John. DP's mn is John and he has never liked it - it's so boring. For sentimental reasons I'd love to include some variant in our child's name if we have a boy, but God it's a struggle to come up with any that we like besides Ivo, which I think is maybe not an obvious link to English ears.

My cousin has already named her child one of the (v nice) Welsh forms of John, so maybe she's paid the family dues.

I don't like John but i do like "johnathan"... I think Joseph means "son of John"? Which is nice

Sean. Irish for John.

I like Jack...

If there are already so many, why don't you go for something completely different?

Sinjin/St John

Jack or Jackie (my grandad was called John but everyone called him either jack or Jackie) also jock

Evan - but maybe that’s the v nice welsh form your cousin has used? DS’ name so obviously it’s the best.

(And yes yes I know it’s anglicised from Iefan)

Also really like Jonathan!

Eoin pronounced Owen is Irish for John also. My sons father, gf, etc all called John so we called ds Eoin as a compromise

Jonathan is super.

Some of these are pretty exotic, but worth a look

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternateformssfortheename_John

Google 'behind the name' and there is a great website with dozens of variants of "John".

Jowan (Cornish) or Johan (Swedish, but pronouced 'Yo-hann' so not very John like!). Did your cousin use Ianto?

We know a couple of Jonahs.

I don't actually think John's boring. It's quite unusual these days really. We have a few John-Pauls in our family (it's a bit too Catholic for most though!)

Jonathon nn Jonty is fab

Sean is lovely but you might find if you're in England it becomes Shawn or Shaun which just looks ugly written down to me, (sorry to Shaun the sheep).

@cosmoa If there are already so many, why don't you go for something completely different?

Because they're from a previous generation, fathers and grandfathers - one who might not see this baby born - and we love them and it would be nice to give them a bit of a nod. We might find another way to do it, just exploring options.

It's true @JaniceBattersby, John is actually kind of cool in its rareness nowadays. I'd be kind of impressed if someone I knew gave it to their kid (my stepmum wanted to call my HS that if she'd been a boy), but it's not for me and I think as a middle name it imparts pretty much nothing.

Thanks guys for your ideas. @bassackwards that is a HUGE list.

Everyone I know called John seems to go by Jonty. I'm not quite sure what I make of that one though.

Ivan, Johann, Giovanni and Gian.

I also like Jonathan and Jonas but don't really see them as variations of John, tbh.

Jonathan is spelt like that, not Johnathan or Jonathon.
Jonah isn't a form of John.
Johnny is nice.
Jack is sometimes short for John.
There are lots of Irish, Scottish and Welsh forms. Most Western languages have a form of John and there's an Arabic form too.
The link doesn't include Iwan, which is a fairly popular Welsh version or Jenkin (Cornish)/Siencyn (Welsh)
Evan is the anglicised form of Ifan, which is very similar to the breton Yvan.

Jack is a nick name for John. We chose it as we wanted the family link, but wanted a more ‘modern’ feel. 3 generations all called John. But the middle one (my gf) was known as jack

Sinjin/St John

^This name is truly, truly awful

Siôn is nice.