Jonatan

Jonatan reaches Polish from Hebrew, where Yonatan, and its fuller form Yehonatan, hold the sense "Yahweh has given." The meaning is a kind of thanks. It names a gift and, in the same breath, the one who gave it.

The oldest bearer most readers will recognise is the biblical Jonathan, son of King Saul, who bound himself in loyalty to the young David. That friendship gave the name a long life across many languages. Polish settled on its own spelling, Jonatan with a single t, rather than the English Jonathan.

In a Polish class register the name sits plainly among the rest, unremarkable and easy to read aloud. On his imieniny a boy called Jonatan might hear the Polish gloss offered back to him, "dar od Boga." It says in three words what the Hebrew already said: given by God.