- Seán
Infobox Given Name Revised
name = Sean
imagesize=
caption=
pronunciation=IPA|/ʃɔn/
US: IPA|/ʃɑːn/
gender = Male
meaning =Yahweh is gracious
region =Ireland ,Irish diaspora
origin = Irish
related names = Shaun, Shawn, Sean,Eoin , John
footnotes =Sean or Seán is an Irish derivative of the Norman-French forename, Jehan, which itself derives from the Latin "Joannes." Like many other common Irish forenames (Sinéad, Piaras, Siobhán, Liam, etc.) Seán first appears in Ireland following the
Norman invasion of Ireland . Common variants of the name includeShaun (chiefly British),Shawn (chieflyUSA ),Ceon (Scottish) andShane .Sean Bradley- got knocked by a kid half his sizeWith its Latin origin, Seán has a long history that traces back to Hebrew name יוחנן (yôḥānnān), which means "Yahweh is gracious".Yahweh is treated as the name ofGod in Hebrew. Yôḥānnān was the name of several importantJewish rabbis in theSecond Temple Period in Palestine, such asYochanan ben Zakai andYochanan ben Nuri .The name had gained popularity among
Jews inJudea andGalilee by the time the area became a province of theRoman Empire in 6 A.D. It was the given name of Yochanan ben Zechariah, aJewish prophet known in English asJohn the Baptist . It was also the given name of Yochanan ben Zibhdi, a fisherman fromGalilee who became one of the favorite students (calleddisciples ) ofJesus Christ and so is known in English asJohn the Apostle . Because Yochanan also wrote one of the four accounts of the life ofJesus Christ calledgospels , theGospel of St. John , he is also known asJohn the Evangelist .The texts that tell of the lives of both these men named Yochanan were written in Greek, and their name was adapted in Greek as Ἰωάννης, Iōánnēs (pronounced YO-han-NAYS). The name Ioannes became extremely popular among the early Christians, and bearers include such noted members of the early church as Ioannes Chrysostomos and the Ioannes who wrote the
Book of Revelation .Because of the great respect Christians had for these men, the name came into use in other parts of the Christianized
Roman Empire , even in remoter parts such asGaul and Britain. The Western areas of theRoman Empire did not, however, speak Greek like the areas in the East. Instead, they spokeLatin . Accordingly, in the Western part of theRoman Empire the name was Latinized as Iohannes (pronounced like the Greek).The local populations in these areas of the
Roman Empire soon changed Roman names to fit their owndialect , which included dropping thesuffixes -us and -es from such names. Johannes became the Germanic Johann, for example, and on the outskirts of the Empire in the newly convertedIreland it became the Irish Eoin. In some cases, the pronunciation of the "J" also changed from the original "Y", so that in Iberia the name eventually changed to the Spanish Juan and inGaul to the French Jean.In the
11th century the French duke William the Conqueror invaded and conqueredEngland and brought his French knights and their dialect with him. InEngland , the French name Jean came to be spelledJohn . The Norman kings ofEngland also conquered Ireland in the13th century and the14th century . The Irish nobility was replaced by Norman nobles, some of whom bore the French nameJean or the Anglicized nameJohn . The Irish adapted the name to their own pronunciation and spelling, producing the name Seán. Sean is mostly pronounced SHAWN, but in the northern parts of Ireland it is pronounced SHAYN, thus leading to the variantShane .
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