View Message

[Facts] Izan
This name appears on the Top 100 for Spain and Catalonia. Is it a respelling of Ethan to reflect the English pronunciation, or does it have a different origin?
vote up1vote down

Replies

Yep, it's Ethan. Izan has been used in the Basque Country but it's significantly less common there than it is down the whole Mediterranean coast, in Madrid, and pretty much compared to Spain as a whole (about 300 Basque Izans out of the 12000 in Spain). Euskaltzaindia doesn't list Izan as a Basque name, so that helps to solidify that while Izan has been used in the Basque Country, it isn't for the word 'izan' or Basque in origin. I do have to acknowledge that I know some people with Basque names that are not in the Euskaltzaindia database, so I can't guarantee anything. The fact that the median age of all Izans in Spain is 4.1 years old, I'm pretty convinced it's just Ethan with the spelling to get that pronunciation.
vote up1vote down
Interesting, thanks.
vote up1vote down
I'm holding thumbs for your and Rene's explanations.During the Second World War there was a very right-wing, white-supremacist politician here in South Africa (Eric Louw) who named his son Izan; in his case it was Nazi, written backwards and pronounced eeZAHN. The son grew up with similar political views but with a far lower public profile than his father, who was a Cabinet minister in the late 1950s, early 1960s.I can't imagine that anyone in Spain would be aware of that derivation or influenced by it!
vote up1vote down
HehehGosh, that's even worse than Aryana, which I have heard of Neo-Nazi couples using.

This message was edited 10/15/2012, 12:44 PM

vote up1vote down
Yeah, why would anyone want a backward Nazi for a child? Very strange!
vote up1vote down
Because it sounds better than the forward form? :-)
vote up1vote down
I entered this name into my own database some years ago as a Basque name with a meaning of "to be", because izan happens to mean exactly that in Basque:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/izanChecking again today, I could find nothing to support this connection, however - this looks more like a coincidence and not like a solid etymology of this name...
vote up1vote down
Thanks for replying.
I'm not sure if there's much evidence for the Basque hypothesis.
http://www.ine.es/tnombres/formGeneralresult.do?L=0&vista=3&orig=ine&cmb4=99&cmb10=0000&cmb6=izan&cmb7=1&x=2&y=14
The name seems to be most common in the eastern areas of Spain, not in the Basque country.Izan doesn't appear on the Euskaltzaindia (Basque Language Academy) website, which I have found to be the most reliable source for Basque names. However, there is a similar name Izani listed, but it seems to be a medieval name that is no longer in use.I still suspect it might be respelling of Ethan.
vote up1vote down