Category Archives: Jeremy

Jeremiah, Jeremy

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Gender: Masculine
Origin: Hebrew, Biblical
Meaning: “Yahweh exhalts.”
Eng (JARE-e-MEE); (JARE-e-MY-ah)

The name is derived from the Hebrew Yirmĭyahu (יִרְמְיָה) meaning, “yahweh exhalts.”

In the Old Testament, Jeremiah was a prophet and author of the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations. He warned the Israelites of God’s impending destruction upon them and lived to see the Babylonian Exile.

Jeremy has been attested to have been used as early as the 13th-century but the name Jeremiah did not catch on in the English-speaking world until well after the Protestant Reformation.

In the English lexicon, jeremiah is used to describe somebody who is chronically complaining and lamenting, in reference to the Biblical prophet.

Currently, Jeremiah is the 69th most popular male name in the United States, (2008).

Other forms of the name include:

  • Jeremies (Catalan)
  • Jeremija Јеремија (Croatian/Serbian/Slovene)
  • Jeremjáš (Czech)
  • Jeremia (Danish/Dutch/Finnish/German/Norwegian/Swedish)
  • Jeremias (Finnish/German/Portuguese)
  • Jorma (Finnish)
  • Jérémie/Jérémy (French)
  • Ieremias Ιερεμιας (Greek: Biblical)
  • Yirmiyahu יִרְמְיָהוּ (Hebrew: Biblical)
  • Jeremiás (Hungarian)
  • Hieremias (Latin: Biblical)
  • Jarema (Polish)
  • Jeremi/Jeremiasz (Polish)
  • Jeremiáš (Slovak)
  • Jeremías (Spanish)

A common English short form is Jerry.

A German and Finnish pet form is Jere.

Sources

  1. Jeremiah, New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition, Tyndale Press, Wheaton, IL, USA 1987.
  2. The New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition, 1982 p. 563; See also Jeremiah 31
  3. ‘Introduction to Jeremiah’, The Jewish Study Bible, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 917
  4. ‘Jeremiah’, New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition, Tyndale Press, 1987 pp. 559-560
  5. Jeremiah 1:1
  6. http://www.behindthename.com/name/jeremiah
  7. http://www.askoxford.com/firstnames/jeremiah?view=uk
  8. http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/jeremiah?view=uk
  9. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Jeremias_(2)