Is Jolene in the Bible?

No one named Jolene appears in the Bible. The name was formed in the early 20th century from Jo and the ending -lene, and it is best known from Dolly Parton’s 1973 song “Jolene.” It has no Hebrew or biblical meaning of its own.

Who is Jolene in the Bible?

The name does not occur in the Hebrew of the Old Testament or the Greek of the New, and no English translation uses it. The best-known Jolene is the woman in Dolly Parton’s song, in which the singer pleads with a beautiful rival not to take the man she loves. She is a character in a country song, not a figure from Scripture.

The Bible name closest to Jolene is Joanna, one of the names that Jo is short for. Luke names her among the women who traveled with Jesus and supported him out of their own means, and says she was the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household (Luke 8:3). She was also one of the women who went to the tomb on the morning of the resurrection, found it empty, and told the apostles (Luke 24:1–10).

The meaning and origin of Jolene

Jolene is a compound. Jo was already a common short form of Joan, Joanna and Josephine, and -lene was a fashionable ending for girls’ names in the middle of the 20th century, as in Marlene and Darlene. Name references such as Behind the Name treat Jolene as that combination and give it no meaning beyond it.

Any older meaning comes through the Jo. Joanna and Joan are feminine forms of John, which comes from the Hebrew Yohanan, “Yahweh is gracious.” Josephine is the feminine of Joseph, a name Genesis explains in Rachel’s words at his birth: “May the Lord add to me another son!” (Genesis 30:24). There is no record of which Jo the first parents to use the name had in mind.

Two other meanings are often repeated online. One says Jolene comes from the French jolie, “pretty.” The words look alike, and jolie does mean pretty, but Jolene is an English name, and name references do not trace it to French. The other says Jolene comes from a Greek name, Ioline, meaning “violet flower.” No standard name reference supports that derivation.

When did Jolene become a popular name?

Jolene first entered the list of the 1,000 most common names for American girls in 1928, at 994th. It rose through the 1940s and 1950s to 364th in 1958, then slipped back to 561st by 1973. Dolly Parton’s song came out in late 1973, and in 1974 the name jumped to 245th, the highest it has ever ranked. It stayed in the top 400 until 1984, fell out of the top 1,000 in the early 1990s, and returned in 2010. Since 2016 it has ranked between about 450th and 670th.

Parton has said she took the name, and the red hair and green eyes of the woman in the song, from a young fan who came up on stage to ask for her autograph. She sang the name over to herself so she would not forget it, and the repetition became the chorus.

Is Jolene a Christian name?

Jolene is not a biblical name or a saint’s name, but Christians are free to use it. Scripture sets no rule about which names believers may give their children, and many names Christians use appear in neither the Bible nor the calendar of saints. The Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law asks only that parents, sponsors and pastors “take care that a name foreign to Christian sensibility is not given” (canon 855).

Related reading

• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names
• Josephine and its roots in Joseph