Thread: English equivalent to Ewan

Hello,

I am trying to trace back some family roots on my grandfather's side. Unfortunately he and all his brothers are now deceased so I am having to do it the hard way. What I am looking for is the first name of my great grandfather. I have two pieces of information that I think are pertinent:

My grandfather's brother's middle name is listed as Ewan on his military service records. He was born in 1895 in or around Saratov. I believe that it is customary for males to take the name of their father as a middle name.
My grandfather's other brother's marriage certificate lists their fathers first name as John.

Would John be an English equivalent to Ewan?

Thanks,

Nick

I believe that it is customary for males to take the name of their father as a middle name.

Yes, it is.

My grandfather's brother's middle name is listed as Ewan

Well, it currently sounds like "Юэн", which reminds me of "Иван" that is definitely a Russian equivalent for John.

Ewan being an alternate spelling for иван seems entirely reasonable to me. w and в are pretty related.

Originally Posted by nepokroeff

Would John be an English equivalent to Ewan?

Yes. Hebrew name Yohanan from Bible was adopted in many countries:

Evan, Giovanni, Hans, Juan, Hovhannes, Ian, Ioan, Ioane, Ivan, Iven, Ifan, Jack, Jackson, Jan, Jane, Janez, Jean, Jhon, Joan, João, Johan/Johann, Johanan, Johannes, Jonne, Jovan, Juhani, Seán, Shane, Siôn, Yahya, Yohannes

"John" is english form. "Ivan" is russian form. So, as was said above it seems that we talk about "Ivan", because "Evan" is welsh form.

Thank you for all the responses. That is what I had hoped and what I found as well.

I am in contact with a Russian agency in Saratov. They will do a search for me for marriage and babtismal records, etc.

Would I be better off requesting the search using a name in Cyrillic or just stick with the English spelling using Ivan?

Thanks again for all replies