Christian names, Atheist names ?

[Jason]

My name (Ian) is biblical in origin, being a Scottish form of John (by the way Scots, Ian = John? W.T.F? I don't even... ).

This likely has to do with the orthography of Old Latin, which is why you see Iesu for Jesus. I forget the particulars so if someone can direct me to a cogent summary, many blessing be they upon your head.

The English hard J is really unusual. In most European languages it's got an I or Y sound, so it's easy to understand how all the names derived from each other and a common source. Evan and Iwan are both in the family too.

Yes.. I knew a gorgeous girl from Serbia named Jellena - prounounced Yellena.

Ahhh.. those Serbians.

[mistermack]

How did Jack come to be a nickname for John?

Most nicknames start out mispronounced by little children, and then the family start copying the baby.

For instance, a little child tries to say mary, but says maisie, and it just sticks.
Eventually a child gets baptised with the nickname maisie, and a new variant then exists.

[surreptitious57]

Names are chosen on the basis
of whether they are liked or not by
those that are doing the choosing. But
beyond that there may not be that much
profound thinking unless to reference either
another family member or a historical character
I would suggest that the majority of atheist parents
this year will have observed this tradition without giving
too much thought to whether the monicker they were choosing
had theistic overtones or not. Accept this is not verifiable. Nonetheless