Is Jack in the Bible? No, It Began as a Pet Form of John



  • No one named Jack appears in the Bible; English Bibles use John, the name of John the Baptist and the apostle John.
  • Jack came from Jankin, a medieval English pet form of Jan, itself a form of John from the Old French Jehan; French Jacques may have had some influence.
  • John comes from the Hebrew Yohanan, “Yahweh is gracious,” built on the verb hanan, “to be gracious,” which appears in Exodus 34:6 and Numbers 6:25.
  • By the late 14th century jack was an ordinary English word for any man; it also came to name machines and, from the 17th century, the lowest court card.
  • C. S. Lewis, born Clive Staples Lewis, took the name Jacksie at four and was called Jack for the rest of his life.
  • Jack was the most common boys’ name in England and Wales from 1996 to 2008 and reached 11th in the United States in 2021.

No one named Jack appears in the Bible. Jack began in medieval England as a pet form of John, and John is the English form of the Hebrew Yohanan, “Yahweh is gracious.” Its link to Scripture runs through John, the name of John the Baptist and of the apostle John. Is Jack in the Bible? Jack does not appear in any book of the Bible or in any translation. English Bibles use John, the form of the name that came…

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