João
[ʒuˈɐ̃w] (approximately “zhoo-AW”)
Fun fact: roughly 9 out of 10 people, when meeting me online for the first time, are kind enough to ask me how to pronounce my name.
I find that extremely gracious and I figured I could do something with that!
João can be hard to pronounce.
Google Translate can help figure out how to do it
Facts and Figures
Origin and Meaning
- João is a Portuguese name derived from the Hebrew Yehohanan, meaning “God is gracious” or “YHWH has been gracious”
- It is the Portuguese equivalent of the English name John
Popularity
- João is extremely popular in Brazil, ranking as the most common male name in the 2000s, with 787,738 occurrences during that decade.
- Globally, João is the 74th most common name, with approximately 4.6 million bearers, most prevalent in Brazil and East Timor.
If you like this sort of stuff, you can find more data here
Variants and Equivalents in Other Languages
João has many equivalents worldwide due to its biblical origin.
It’s not completely unlikely that there’s a version of it in your language.
- English: John
- Spanish: Juan
- French: Jean
- Italian: Giovanni
- German: Johannes
- Russian: Иван (Ivan)
- Arabic: يوحنا (Yuḥanna) or يحيى (Yaḥyā)
There’s a feminine form as well: Joana
You can probably tell this is all very tongue-in-cheek.
I don’t want you to worry too much about this. 🙂