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Boy · Hebrew, through Greek
Ivan
Say it: ee-VAHN
Meaning
From Hebrew Yohanan 'Yahweh is gracious', through Greek Ioannes.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
The commonest Russian man's name for centuries, and the standard Croatian and Bulgarian form of John.
Its wave through time
Timeless: in steady use for over a century
In the United States
- 139,046 babies given this name since 1880
- At its height in 2004, about 1 in 574 boys
- 2,425 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Early Middle Ages400 to 800
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Иван, Vanya
| Ukrainian | Ivan |
|---|---|
| Czech | Jan |
| Polish | Jan |
| Serbian | Jovan |
| Croatian | Ivan |
| Bulgarian | Ivan |
| English | John |
Famous bearers
- Ivan the Terrible, first Tsar of Russia
- Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- Royal and noble genealogies
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.