Ian

Ian traces back to the Hebrew name Yohanan, which meant "God is gracious." From that same root came John, and Ian is the Scottish form that English speakers later took up as their own. The name is short. Its meaning is not.

Because Scotland shaped the spelling, Ian often reads as thoroughly British, though the sense underneath it is Hebrew: bóg jest łaskawy, God is gracious. No diminutives cling to it, no cross-gender pair. It stays plain, four letters and one old idea.

Picture a Polish class register with an Ian listed among the Jans and Janeks. They are cousins by way of that shared root, even where the spelling has traveled far from its beginnings. Whatever the accent around it, the name still says God is gracious.