Word.ws English Dictionary

Ian

/ˈiː.ən/

Ian proper noun: a male given name from Scottish Gaelic Eòin, equivalent to English John.

Proper noun

Ian

  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...1975, Robertson Davies, World of Wonders, →ISBN, page 736
    • After an inquest's ruling yesterday, it is now official that the newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, was unlawfully killed amid the policing of the G20 protests in 2009. Many who saw the footage the Guardian obtained, which showed PC Simon Harwood striking Mr Tomlinson just before his death, will...2011 May 4, Ian Tomlinson, “Unlawfully killed by the law”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 10 Mar 2016

Ian meaning in Arabic

Ian in Arabic

male given name
إيان ʔiyān

Examples of Ian in a sentence

  • If you want to call him Ian Fetch, I shall say no more”.1975, Robertson Davies, World of Wonders, →ISBN, page 736:
  • After an inquest's ruling yesterday, it is now official that the newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, was unlawfully killed amid the policing of the G20 protests in 2009.2011 May 4, Ian Tomlinson, “Unlawfully killed by the law”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 10 Mar 2016:

Forms of Ian

alternative formIain

Origin of Ian

Borrowed from Scottish Gaelic Eòin.

Words formed from Ian

Words that rhyme with Ian

13 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about Ian

What does Ian mean?
Ian means a male given name from Scottish Gaelic Eòin, equivalent to English John.
What is Ian in Arabic?
Ian in Arabic is إيان (ʔiyān). See Ian meaning in Arabic.
How do you use Ian in a sentence?
If you want to call him Ian Fetch, I shall say no more”.
What part of speech is Ian?
Ian is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Ian?
Ian is pronounced /ˈiː.ən/.

Words near Ian in the dictionary

  1. Iamids
  2. IAMMS
  3. Iams
  4. Iamses
  5. Iamus
  6. Ian
  7. IANA
  8. IANAD
  9. IANAE
  10. IANAL
  11. IANAS

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ian (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-Ian.oga.

Cite this entry: “Ian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.