Javan

Javan is the English biblical form of a Hebrew name for Greece, usually connected with the ancient Ionians. In Genesis, Javan is a son of Japheth and a grandson of Noah. The genealogical story presents him as an ancestor of Greek peoples, linking a personal name with the biblical understanding of neighboring nations.

That geographic background gives Javan a different history from other modern names ending in -van. Yavan and Yawan are alternative ways of representing the Hebrew form, while the initial j belongs to the traditional English biblical spelling. A family may be drawn to its scriptural place, the connection between Hebrew and Greek history, or its relatively concise form. Its meaning refers to a people and a land, rather than to a personal virtue or a modern English word.