This week in baby naming advice, we received a question about using a nickname other than John for the baby boy name Jonathan. This is a great question, and one that has an answer that you might not be expecting.
Name Meaning
Jonathan is a popular Biblical name, with Hebrew roots, that means “Yahweh has given” or “God had given”. There’s a Jonathan in the Old Testament, the son of Saul, but it didn’t become common as a first name in the English-speaking world until after the Protestant Reformation in the seventeenth century.
In the US, according the Social Security Administration baby names database, the name was used occasionally until the 1940s, when it saw a big increase in popularity after World War II.
It grew steadily in popularity from there, peaking at number 15 in 1988, but has remained in the top 50 ever since, up until a slight dip in popularity down to number 56 in 2017.
Although Jon or Jonny are sometimes used as nicknames, there’s an important difference in between Jon and John.
What’s the Difference Between Jonathan and John?
At first glance the only difference between Jon and John is the letter H, but when you dig a little deeper and look at the history, the two names have different roots.
Jonathan is derived from the Hebrew name Yonatan, while John comes from the Hebrew Yochanan that means “God is gracious”. It’s one of the most common names in the history of the English-speaking world, so I can certainly understand wanting to choose a nickname that will stand out a little bit more!
The point of this little history lesson, though, is that John isn’t really a nickname for Jonathan at all (although it might be sometimes used as one) – it’s a full name all on its own.
So if you are looking for a nickname for Jonathan, don’t feel like you need to stay with the straightforward Jon or John.
Jonah
One idea is to use Jonah as a nickname for Jonathan. Although Jonah is a name on its own – also originating in the Bible, its most famous bearer was swallowed by a whale – it shares the first few letters with Jonathan, making it a plausible choice.
The two names have different roots (Jonah comes from the Hebrew word for dove), but that isn’t a dealbreaker.
Rarely used in the US prior to the 1970s, Jonah has also seen a modest jump in popularity in the 1990s and has remained somewhere between numbers 100 and 200 on the SSA baby names list.
It hits that sweet spot of being common enough that everyone can spell and pronounce it, but not so common there are likely to be multiple kids with the name in the same class.
Nathan
Although a majority of nicknames come from shortening the name to the first one or two syllables, another idea that could work is to take the nickname from the last two syllables.
Nathan is another Hebrew-based name from the Bible that means “He gave”, so you can see that it shares a common root with Jonathan.
Nathan is a little more popular than Jonah, checking in at number 45 on the 2017 edition of the SSA baby names list, and has never really fallen out of style in modern times.
It’s also sometimes used as a nickname for the related name Nathaniel, which has enjoyed a similar steady rate of popularity, so if popularity is a concern for you, this name might be more common than Jonah.
Initials
If Jonah or Nathan don’t appeal to you, another popular course of action is to use the initials of the first and middle names.
Initial nicknames are especially popular with J names, and although the J initial is often a middle name (AJ, JJ, TJ, etc), it can sometimes be done without a J middle name as well.
Think of former NSYNC singer JC Chasez or actor JK Simmons.
Unexpected Nicknames
And don’t rule out the possibility of a nickname totally unrelated to the first name developing organically, either.
Many a parent has picked out a nickname and anticipated using it, only for their child to end up answering exclusively to the name of Bubba or some other nickname that wasn’t anywhere on the horizon originally.
Conclusion
Jonathan is a great classic name with lots of potential for nicknames. You don’t need to feel limited by just shortening it to the first syllable – this article only mentions a few options, and I am sure there are many more out there that I haven’t thought of!
Be as creative as you want to be, as long as you keep in mind that sometimes our best nickname intentions don’t end up working out, and our kids end up with nicknames we never could have come up with on our own!
