Names That Start with J

J is one of the youngest letters in the alphabet. It began as a variant of I and only settled as a separate letter in the early modern period, which is why many J names started out with a y sound in Hebrew. Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, John, Jonathan, Jeremiah and Josiah all come from the Hebrew Bible and reached English through Greek and Latin.

James has a story of its own. It developed from Jacob through a Late Latin form, so the two are related even though they look different. Jack began as a familiar form of John and has long been used as a full name. Jose is the Spanish form of Joseph, said with an h sound at the start. Jordan is the river where, in the New Testament, baptisms took place, and Julian comes from a Roman family name.

Newer styles appear here too. Jackson started as a surname meaning son of Jack, and Jaxon is a modern respelling of it. Jayden is a recent creation that has spread widely. Because J names are so familiar, it is worth checking how your choice sounds next to your surname, and whether a shared initial within your family matters to you.