The transliterations into the Roman alphabet I’ve seen almost always have a double-s, I’m guessing to keep westerners (or at least English speakers) from prounoncing the name “Is-AY.” I met a couple of fellows who even spell it “Eissa.”
Actually, the REAL question (as I once heard someone remark) is why Jesus, who lived in the Middle East, would have a Spanish name…
No, but a lot found it convenient to adapt. The closer they were to Cordoba, Seville and Granada, the more convenient it was. Case in point: Ibn Hazem (994-1064).
Actually, despite its similarity with the french words for “king” and “world”, the surname “Raymond” is of germanic origin ( Reginmundo, Raginmund, Ragnemodus in latin) and has nothing to do with the french language (though it’s a common french name). It originally meant something like “advisor”.
Because the New Testament was written in Greek.
Greek Jesus = Hebrew Yeshua/Yehoshua.
cmkeller, I believe that Noone Special’s point was that Christians didn’t want Jesus to have a common, Hebrew (i.e Jewish) name.
No offense, but that doesn’t answer the question.
I’m not reading a Bible written in Greek or Hebrew. I’m reading one written in English. The name in question is spelled J-E-S-U-S. Joshua, Yeshua, Yehoshua, etc. are irrelevant to my query. Other names in an English Bible are used: Abraham, John, Mary, Ruth, Peter, etc. – just as they are written, in English, in the Bible. The question, in a narrow form, is why don’t English speaking cultures use Jesus – just as it is written, in English, in the Bible – as a first name? The corollary observation is that (at least some, probably most, maybe all) Spanish speaking cultures use Jesus – just as it is written, in Spanish, in the Bible – as a first name.
Well, clearely there were converts, especially in the south. And, what about Ibn Hazm? As far as I know, he was born a Muslim to Muslim parents, and his ancestry was Arab.
From Britannica DVD-rom 2001.
Well, I think in English speaking cultures it would be seen as somewhat presumptuous to name your child after Jesus, just as it would be to name your child “God.” But it’s not clear to me why this isn’t the case for other cultures.
It’s quite easy the answer, really, looking at it historically: originally was used “Jesus” as the final part of a complete compound first name: José (please recall that in Spanish the ‘J’ sounds as a hard ‘H’), Joseph, de Jesús, Alberto de Jesús, Felipe de Jesús, etc., meaning -first name (José, Alberto, Juan, etc.), OF Jesus, that is, property of Jesus, dedicated to Jesus. Later grew the custom of just calling familiarly those with that kind of compound name as ‘Jesus’ only, and from this to later christen some newborns as just Jesus. Same applies to ladies, as in those countries many were and still are christened with a compound name, a common one female name added with ‘de Jesús’, like María de Jesús, Juana de Jesús, etc., and the same process was applied so the ladies would become eventually to be christened, something even more difficult to understand for who does not know how this came to happen, directly as “Jesusa”, a hispanicized female-ization of the name Jesus.
After 10 and a half years on the cross, this thread comes back.
zombie or no
hoping it might rub off.
There is no single Spanish naming tradition. Do Catalans and Basques use the name?
It came back because I was stuck behind a “Jesus and Sons Landscaping” truck on the way home from work today. Outside of Miami and LA that truck would have had rocks thrown at it for sacrilege.
Wonder if the son is also Jesus and when eh takes over will rename the company, “Jesus and Dad”. That would really rile them up.
Interesting. A little bit of IgnoranceFought. Thank you.
Could be worse.
They could be carpenters.
Manel (Emmanuel, another name for Jesus) is one of the stereotypical Catalan names, to the point where calling yourself Manuel (Spanish) or Manel (Catalan) is a political statement; Jesus and Jesús haven’t gotten as politicized.
Basque are as likely to be a Jesús or a Manuel as about anybody else in Spain. In general these names have become less common in recent generations, but as part of the general influx of new names.
Pronunciations, to the best of my bad API:
Catalan /'ʒɛ.sus/
Basque /'xe.sus/
Spanish /xe.'sus/
A common nickname for Manuel is Manolo; nowadays that form is inusual but a few decades ago it was very common (see: singer Manolo Escobar, tennis player Manolo Santana).
Vald-mær(r) would also be a perfectly legit Germanic name: Renowned by Power.
So there’s a lot to this.
Annoying how so many people hijack this thread with irrelevant comments about Vladimirs and Joshuas.
I suppose that the problem is that, as they would say in QI, nobody knows.