IVAN

Ivan is a masculine given name widely used in Slavic and Baltic languages, and in several non-Slavic contexts. It is the local form of John, derived from the Hebrew Yohanan meaning “God is gracious.” The name entered Slavic languages through Church Slavonic from the Greek Ioannes and Latin Ioannes, and is now common in Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Moldova, and other countries. Diminutives include Vanya, Ivashka, Ivanko, and Ivanka (the feminine form). The name has many cognates and variants in other languages, such as Ioannes (Latin), Ioan (Romanian), Iwan (German), Jovan (Serbian), Ivan (Bulgarian, Russian), Iván (Spanish), Yvan (French), and Ion (Romanian).

Ivan is often used in literature and history. Notable individuals named Ivan include Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Russia (1530–1584); Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), physiologist; Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), novelist; Ivan Lendl (born 1960), Czech-American tennis player; and Ivan Reitman (1946–2022), film director and producer. In fiction, the name appears in characters such as Ivan Drago, the antagonist in Rocky IV (1985).