يحيى

Meaning

Name

1. John (the Baptist)
2. a male given name, Yahya or Yehia

Verb

1. (alt-of, obsolete) obsolete spelling of يَحْيَا (yaḥyā)
2. (alt-of, misspelling) misspelling of يَحْيَا (yaḥyā)

Concepts

John

Sean

Jean

Joan

John Lackland

Johnny

Yahya

King John

Shane

Jack

Shawn

Synonyms

يحنا

يوحنا

Translations

Jean

Jan

Hans

Johann

Johannes

Hannes

Ιωάννης

John

Le Roi Jean

Gianni

Giovanni

Iohannes

Jan

Johan

Johannes

Pronounced as (IPA)

/jaħ.jaː/

Etymology

Uncertain. It was long unclear why Arabic (e.g. in the Quran, 19:7) gave John the Baptist a name dissimilar to Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān, “Yahweh is gracious”); the traditional Muslim explanation related يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) to حَيِيَ (ḥayiya, “to live”) / يَحْيَا (yaḥyā, “he is alive”), while Western scholars alternatively theorized that, because early Arabic texts omitted diacritics, the current vocalization يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) derived from misreading the unvocalized rasm (visually ىحىى) of *يُحَنَّى (yuḥannā) (a more expectable cognate to the Hebrew figure's name; compare Christian Arabic يُوحَنَّا (yūḥannā)).
Circa 1910, an inscription from 306 CE containing the name Yḥya was found; it was made in al-Ula by a Jew or a Christian in Nabatean Aramaic or another language, and has been variously interpreted, either as indicating that in some communities Hebrew יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān) had developed into Yḥya and familiarity with this is why early Muslims used that form of the name for John the Baptist in the Quran, or alternatively as indicating that the name يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) existed in pre-Islamic Arabic and was used by al-Ulans named יוֹחָנָן (Yōḥānān) as the Arabic form (translation) of that name.
(The Mandaic Ginza Rabba also contains ࡉࡀࡄࡉࡀ (yaħya), but it is unclear whether this spelling predates or influenced, or postdates or was influenced by, the use of يَحْيَى (yaḥyā) in Arabic.)