Good evening,
I am a non-Jewish German with a special question on Jewish theology, I hope to find an answer (or possibly several answers) here.
I recently realised that the Hebrew male given name Johanan or Jehohanan is the linguistic ancestor of many European male given names, including some very common ones such as Giovanni, Ivan, John, Jean, Hans (See the discussion here.
I then realised and confirmed by Googling that the name contains the name of the Lord (as well as a verb: hnn).
My (quite possibly wrong) understanding is, that the name of the Lord is traditionally not pronounced. Of course, the Christian tradition is less strict here, but it appears to me that at least in antiquity it must have been a somewhat common Jewish name (there are several “Johanans” in the Tanach, and of course there is John the Baptist and the evangelist John, of which at least the first is a documented historical person and a Jew). In addition, the name has cognates in Aramaic and Arabic.
So, I am curious to know if traditional Jews would disapprove of this name, and if not, why? Or do I have entirely wrong ideas about this? Was this possibly handele more loosely in ancient Judaism? Or even just a medieval introduction?
Thank you in advance for any enlightenment.
submitted by /u/FlosAquae
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Source: Reditt