Ian

//ˈiː.ən// name

name ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A male given name from Scottish Gaelic Eòin, equivalent to English John.

    "“If you want a Scotch name why don’t you call him Jock?” Macgregor looked disgusted. “Because Jock is not a name, but a diminutive, as everybody knows well. It is the diminutive of John. And John is not a Scots name. The Scots form of that name is Ian. If you want to call him Ian Fetch, I shall say no more”."

Synonyms

All synonyms
-ensian-ese-y

Example

More examples

"I wish I could play the flute as well as Ian Anderson."

Etymology

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic Eòin.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.