Names of God
The Name, and Every Name Around It
Four consonants with no certain vowels sit at the center of the Hebrew Bible, and almost every English Bible hides them behind the word LORD. Around that silence grew substitutions, reconstructions, hybrid forms, sacred-name movements, occult borrowings, and a great deal of confident nonsense. Here is each name — what it says, where it comes from, how each translation renders it, and what people claim about it.
20 names · 42 documented claims, theories & conspiracies
יהוה
YHWH — the Tetragrammaton
YHWH / IHVH / JHVH
The personal name of the God of Israel — four consonants, no certain vowels, ~6,800 occurrences, and almost universally hidden behind 'LORD' in English Bibles.
~6,828 times in the Hebrew Bible
יַהְוֶה (reconstructed)
Yahweh
Yahweh
The most widely accepted scholarly reconstruction of how the Tetragrammaton was once spoken.
A reconstruction of YHWH; not written as such in any Hebrew manuscript
יְהֹוָה
Jehovah
Yehovah / Iehouah
A 13th-century hybrid form that became the English devotional name — historically inaccurate, culturally entrenched.
4 times in the KJV; 7,000+ in the ASV and NWT
אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה
Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh — I AM WHO I AM
'Ehyeh 'Asher 'Ehyeh
The self-definition behind the Tetragrammaton — a verb of being turned into a name.
Once, Exodus 3:14
אֱלֹהִים
Elohim
'Elohim
The generic-but-loaded word for God: plural in form, singular in reference, and the flashpoint for half the debates about Genesis.
~2,600 times
אֲדֹנָי
Adonai
'Adonai
The spoken stand-in for the unspeakable name — and the hinge that let Greek-speaking Christians call Jesus 'Lord'.
~440 times as a divine title
אֵל שַׁדַּי
El Shaddai
'El Shadday
The patriarchs' name for God — translated 'Almighty' with more confidence than the Hebrew actually allows.
Shaddai 48 times; El Shaddai 7 times
אֵל עֶלְיוֹן
El Elyon and the El names
'El 'Elyon
The El compounds name God by encounter — Most High, Everlasting, the One who sees.
Elyon ~53 times; El ~230 times standing alone
יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת
YHWH Sabaoth — LORD of Hosts
YHWH Tseva'ot
The martial name of God — the commander of armies, human and heavenly.
~285 times, concentrated in the Prophets
יָהּ
Yah
Yah
The compact form of the name — hidden in every 'hallelujah' and in half the prophets' names.
~50 times, mostly in Psalms
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
Yeshua'
The Hebrew name behind 'Jesus' — ordinary in first-century Galilee, contested in twenty-first-century arguments.
29 times in the Hebrew Bible as a personal name (Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles)
Ἰησοῦς
Iēsous / Jesus
Iēsous
The Greek form that carried the name into every European language — and into every argument about which form is 'real'.
~917 times in the Greek New Testament
Κύριος
Kyrios — Lord
Kyrios
The Greek word that inherited the Tetragrammaton's weight — and then was applied to Jesus.
~700 times in the New Testament
מָשִׁיחַ · Χριστός
Messiah / Christos
Mashiach · Christos
A job description — 'the anointed one' — that became the defining title of Jesus.
Mashiach 39 times (OT); Christos ~529 times (NT)
עִמָּנוּ אֵל
Immanuel
'Immanu 'El
Two words of Hebrew that carry the entire virgin-birth translation debate.
3 times (Isaiah 7:14, 8:8; Matthew 1:23)
אַבָּא
Abba
'Abba
A single Aramaic word kept untranslated — the closest thing to hearing Jesus' own voice in prayer.
3 times (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6)
רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ · πνεῦμα ἅγιον
Ruach HaKodesh — the Holy Spirit
Ruach HaQodesh · Pneuma Hagion
Wind, breath, and Spirit in one word — and a grammatical gender that changes with every language it crosses.
Ruach ~378 times; pneuma ~379 times
λόγος · ܡܠܬܐ
Logos — the Word
Logos · Meltha
The bridge word — Greek philosophy's rational principle and Judaism's creative Word, applied to a person.
~330 times in the NT; as a title of Christ, John 1:1, 1:14, 1 John 1:1, Revelation 19:13
τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ
Alpha and Omega
to Alpha kai to Ō
A Greek alphabetic merism claiming total sovereignty — applied to God and to Christ in the same book.
3–4 times, all in Revelation
הַשֵּׁם
Ha-Shem and the substitutions
HaShem
The reverence practice that stands between the Hebrew text and every 'LORD' in your English Bible.
Extra-biblical convention; the biblical seed is Leviticus 24:11