Jan - Meaning of Jan

What does Jan mean?

Pronounce
Jan

[ 1 syll. jan, ja-n ] The baby boy name Jan is sometimes used as a girl name. Its pronunciation is JHAEN †. Jan is largely used in the Czech, Dutch, English, German, Polish, Scandinavian, Belgian, and Slavic languages, and it is derived from Czech and Hebrew origins. As an English name, Jan was first used by English speakers during the medieval period. The earlier forms Jehan (Old French) and Johan (Early Middle English) gave rise to the contracted form Jan, Jon, or John, as Middle English names were typically monosyllabic. See Jan for more information.

Jan is a contraction of the name Janacek (Czech).

Jan is also a Czech, Dutch, German, Polish, and Scandinavian variant of the name Johannes (Dutch, German, and Scandinavian).

Jan is also a Czech, Dutch, English, German, Polish, Belgian, Scandinavian, and Slavic contraction of the name Janusz (Polish) as well as a Belgian, Czech, Dutch, German, Polish, Scandinavian, and Slavic variant of the name John (English and Hebrew).

The name Janna (English, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, African, Swahili, and Hebrew) is the female equivalent of Jan.

Jan has 20 variants that are used in English and other languages. Variants used in English include Jahn, Jana, Janae, Janak, Jano, Janos, Jenda, Jennings, Jens, Jhan, Jonam, and Yan. The pet form Jenkin, and the variant spelling Jann (used in German as well) are other English forms. Jaan (Russian), Jantien (Dutch), and Jasiek (Polish) are foreign variants of Jan. Specific foreign variants include the pet forms Honza (Czech), Janecek (Czech), Janek (Estonian, Hungarian, Polish, and Czech), Janik (Breton, Czech, French, and Polish), Janko (Polish, Slavic, Dutch, and Hungarian), Janne (Finnish and Scandinavian), Jannick (Breton, French, and Scandinavian), Jannik (Breton, French, and Scandinavian), and Janusz (Polish).

See also the related forms, Janson (English and Scandinavian) and Janina.

See also the related categories, medieval, slavic, english, polish, hebrew, czech, dutch, john, french, german, and scandinavian.

Jan is rare as a baby name for boys. At the modest peak of its usage in 1944, 0.039% of baby boys were given the name Jan. Its ranking then was #247. The baby name has since markedly declined in popularity, and is now of infrequent use. Out of the group of boy names directly linked to Jan, John was the most commonly used in 2018. Although there were times from 1930 to 1983 that Jan was more popular with girls, today it is somewhat used more commonly as a baby boy name.

Baby names that sound like Jan include Jhan, Jaeson, Jam, Jasón, Jaym, Jean, Jeane, Jeanne, Jeen, Jem, Jen, Jenö, Jéan, Jhon, Jian, Jim, Jimm, Jin, Jinn, and Joan.

† Pronunciation for Jan: JH as in "joy (JH.OY)" ; AE as in "at (AE.T)" ; N as in "knee (N.IY)"

Details of famous persons named Jan:
Artist Jan Vermeer, born Johannes van der Meer, Delft, Netherlands.
Painter Jan (Johannes) van Eyck, born 1395 - 1441, Burgundian Netherlands.
Publisher Robert Maxwell, born Jan Ludvick Hoch, 10 June 1923 - 5 November 1991, Slatinske Dòly, Czech Republic.