Names of God

There are various names of God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word "god" (and its equivalent in other languages) is used by multiple religions as a noun or name to refer to different deities, or specifically to the Supreme Being, as denoted in English by the capitalized and uncapitalized terms "God" and "god". Ancient cognate equivalents for the biblical Hebrew "Elohim", one of the most common names of God in the Bible, include proto-Semitic "El", biblical Aramaic "Elah", and Arabic "'ilah". The personal or proper name for God in many of these languages may either be distinguished from such attributes, or homonymic. For example, in Judaism the tetragrammaton is sometimes related to the ancient Hebrew "ehyeh" ("I will be"). In the Hebrew Bible (), Yahweh, the personal name of God, is revealed directly to Moses. Correlation between various theories and interpretation of the name of "the one God", used to signify a monotheistic or ultimate Supreme Being from which all other divine attributes derive, has been a subject of ecumenical discourse between Eastern and Western scholars for over two centuries. In Christian theology the word is considered a personal and a proper name of God. On the other hand, the names of God in a different tradition are sometimes referred to by symbols. The question whether divine names used by different religions are equivalent has been raised and analyzed.
Exchange of names held sacred between different religious traditions is typically limited. Other elements of religious practice may be shared, especially when communities of different faiths are living in close proximity (for example, the use of Om and Krishna within the Indian Christian community) but usage of the names themselves mostly remains within the domain of a particular religion, or even may help define one's religious belief according to practice, as in the case of the recitation of names of God (such as the japa). Guru Gobind Singh's Jaap Sahib, which contains 950 names of God. "The Divine Names", the classic treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius, defines the scope of traditional understandings in Western traditions such as Hellenic, Christian, Jewish and Islamic theology on the nature and significance of the names of God. Further historical lists such as "The 72 Names of the Lord" show parallels in the history and interpretation of the name of God amongst Kabbalah, Christianity, and Hebrew scholarship in various parts of the Mediterranean world.
The attitude as to the transmission of the name in many cultures was surrounded by secrecy. In Judaism, the pronunciation of the name of God has always been guarded with great care. It is believed that, in ancient times, the sages communicated the pronunciation only once every seven years; this system was challenged by more recent movements.
The nature of a holy name can be described as either personal or attributive. In many cultures it is often difficult to distinguish between the personal and the attributive names of God, the two divisions necessarily shading into each other.
Abrahamic religions.
Judaism.
El comes from a root word meaning might, strength, power . Sometimes referring to God and sometimes the mighty when used to refer to the God of Israel, El is almost always qualified by additional words that further define the meaning that distinguishes him from false gods. A common title of God in the Hebrew Bible is Elohim (Hebrew: אלהים). The root "Eloah" (אלה) is used in poetry and late prose (e.g., the Book of Job) and ending with the masculine plural suffix "-im" ים creating a word like "ba`alim" ("owner(s)" and "adonim" ("lord(s), master(s)") that may also indicate a singular identity.
In the Book of Exodus, God commands Moses to tell the people that 'I AM' sent him, and this is revered as one of the most important names of God according to Mosaic tradition.
In , when Moses first spoke with God, God said, "I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them by my name YHWH."
YHWH () is the proper name of God in Judaism. Neither vowels nor vowel points were used in ancient Hebrew writings and the original vocalisation of YHWH has been lost.
Later commentaries additionally suggested that the true pronunciation of this name is composed entirely of vowels, such as the Greek Ιαουε. However, this is put into question by the fact that vowels were only distinguished in the time-period by their very absence due to the lack of explicit vowels in the Hebrew script. The resulting substitute made from semivowels and glottals, known as the tetragrammaton, is not ordinarily permitted to be pronounced aloud, even in prayer. The prohibition on misuse (not use) of this name is the primary subject of the command not to take the name of the Lord in vain.
Instead of pronouncing YHWH during prayer, Jews say "Adonai" ("Lord"). "Halakha" requires that secondary rules be placed around the primary law, to reduce the chance that the main law will be broken. As such, it is common religious practice to restrict the use of the word "Adonai" to prayer only. In conversation, many Jewish people, even when not speaking Hebrew, will call God "HaShem" (השם), which is Hebrew for "the Name" (this appears in ).
Almost all Orthodox Jews avoid using either Yahweh or Jehovah altogether on the basis that the actual pronunciation of the tetragrammaton has been lost in antiquity. Many use the term "HaShem" as an indirect reference, or they use "God" or "The Lord" instead.
Christianity.
Some biblical scholars say YHWH was most likely pronounced "Yahweh". References, such as "The New Encyclopædia Britannica", validate the above by offering additional specifics to its (Christian) reconstruction out of Greek sources:
Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and claim that this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.
The Hebrew theonyms Elohim and YHWH are mostly rendered as "God" and "the " respectively, although in the Protestant tradition of Christianity the personal names Yahweh and Jehovah are sometimes used. "Jehovah" appears in the Tyndale Bible, the King James Version, and other translations from that time period and later. Many English translations of the Bible translate the tetragrammaton as , thus removing any form of YHWH from the written text and going well beyond the Jewish oral practice of substituting Adonai for YHWH when reading aloud.
English Bible translations of the Greek New Testament render "ho theos" (Greek: Ο Θεός) as God and "ho kurios" (Greek: Ο Κύριος) as "the Lord".
Jesus (Iesus, Yeshua) was a common alternative form of the name ("Yehoshua" - Joshua) in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling "Iesous", from which comes the English spelling Jesus. "Christ" means "the anointed" in Greek (). "Khristos" is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah; while in English the old Anglo-Saxon Messiah-rendering "hæland" (healer) was practically annihilated by the Latin "Christ", some cognates such as "heiland" in Dutch and Afrikaans survive—also, in German, the word "Heiland" is sometimes used as reference to Jesus, e.g., in church chorals).
In the Book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament, God is quoted as saying "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End". (cf. , , and )
Some Quakers refer to God as The Light. Another term used is King of Kings or Lord of Lords and Lord of Hosts. Other names used by Christians include Ancient of Days, Father/Abba which is Hebrew, "Most High" and the Hebrew names Elohim, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah and Adonai. "Abba" (Father in Hebrew) is a common term used for the creator within Christianity because it was a title Jesus used to refer to God the Father.
Guđán is the Proto-Germanic word for God. It was inherited by the Germanic languages in Gud in modern Scandinavian; God in Frisian, Dutch, and English; and Gott in modern German.
Deus is the Latin word for God. It was inherited by the Romance languages in Deus in modern Portuguese; Dios in Spanish; Dieu in French; Dio in Italian; and Dumnezeu (from Domine Deus) in Romanian.
Bog is the word for God in most Slavic languages. (Cyrillic script: Бог; Czech: Bůh; Polish: Bóg; Slovak: Boh). The term is derived from Proto-Slavic , which originally meant "earthly wealth/well-being; fortune", with a semantic shift to "dispenser of wealth/fortune" and finally "god". The term may have originally been a borrowing from the Iranian languages.
Shàngdì (上帝 pinyin "shàng dì", literally 'King Above') is used to refer to the Christian God in the Standard Chinese Union Version of the Bible. Shén 神 (lit. "God", "spirit", or "deity") was adopted by Protestant missionaries in China to refer to the Christian God. In this context it is usually rendered with a space, " 神", to demonstrate reverence. Zhǔ and Tiānzhǔ 主, 天主 (lit. "Lord" or "Lord in Heaven") are equivalent to "Lord"; these names are used as formal titles of the Christian God in Mainland China's Christian churches.
Korean Catholics also use the Korean cognate of Tiānzhǔ, Cheon-ju (천주), as the primary reference to God in both ritual/ceremonial and vernacular (but mostly ritual/ceremonial) contexts. Korean Catholics and Anglicans also use a cognate of the Chinese Shàngdì (Sangje 상제), but this has largely fallen out of regular use in favor of Cheon-ju. But now used is the vernacular Haneunim (하느님), the traditional Korean name for the God of Heaven. Korean Orthodox Christians also use Haneunim, but not Sangje or Cheon-ju, and with exception of Anglicans, most Korean Protestants do not use Sangje or Haneunim at all but instead use Hananim (하나님), which stemmed from Pyongan dialect for Haneunim.
Many Vietnamese Christians also use cognates of Shàngdì (expected to have a distribution in usage similar to Korean Christians, with Anglicans and Catholics using the cognates of Sangje in ritual/ceremonial contexts and Protestants not using it at all), to refer to the biblical God.
Tagalog-speaking Filipino Catholics and other Christians use "Maykapal" (glossed as "creator") – an epithet originally applied to the pre-colonial supreme deity Bathala – to refer to the Christian godhead in most contexts. When paired with another term for God (e.g. "Panginoong Maykapal" "Lord Creator", "Amang Maykapal" "Father Creator"), it functions as a descriptor much like the adjectives in the English "God Almighty" or Latin "Omnipotens Deus".
Among the Nguni peoples of Southern Africa, he is known as Nkosi (roughly glossed as "king"). This name is used in "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika".
Followers of Rastafari call God Jah, which is derived from "Jehovah".
The Basque name for the Christian God is , glossed as "The lord () of above ()".
 is also used and lowercase is the word for other gods.
It has been proposed that is a contraction of , but it has been proposed as well that is the original and is a folk etymology.
Standard Basque morphology would have *.
Mormonism.
In Mormonism the name of God the Father is Elohim and the name of Jesus in his pre-incarnate state was Jehovah. Together, with the Holy Ghost they form the Godhead; God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Mormons typically refer to God as "Heavenly Father" or "Father in Heaven".
Although Mormonism views the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three distinct beings, they are one in purpose and God the Father (Elohim) is worshipped and given all glory through his Son, Jesus Christ (Jehovah). Despite the Godhead doctrine, which teaches that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate, divine beings, many Mormons (mainstream Latter-day Saints and otherwise, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) view their beliefs as monotheist since Christ is the conduit through which humanity comes to the God the Father. The Book of Mormon ends with "to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the eternal Judge of both the quick and dead. Amen."
Jehovah's Witnesses.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God has only one distinctive name, represented in the Old Testament by the Tetragrammaton. In English, they prefer to use the form Jehovah. According to Jehovah's Witnesses, the name Jehovah means "He causes to become".
Scriptures frequently cited in support of the name include Isaiah 42:8: "I am Jehovah. That is my name", Psalms 83:18: "May people know that you, whose name is Jehovah, You alone are the Most High over all the earth", and Exodus 6:3: "And I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but with regard to my name Jehovah I did not make myself known to them."
While opposers of the faith critique their use of the form “Jehovah”, Jehovah's Witnesses still hold on to their belief that, despite having scholars prefer the “Yahweh” pronunciation, the name Jehovah adequately transmits the idea behind the meaning of God's name in English. While they don't discourage the use of the “Yahweh” pronunciation, they highly consider the long history of the name Jehovah in the English language and see that it sufficiently identifies God's divine persona. This rationale is analogous to the widespread use of Jesus as the English translation of Yehoshua.
Islam.
Allah—meaning "the god" in Arabic—is the name of God in Islam. The word Allah has been used by Arabic people of different religions since pre-Islamic times. More specifically, it has been used as a term for God by Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) and Arab Christians. God has many names in Islam, the Qur'an says (translation) to Him Belong the Best Names (Lahu Al-Asma' Al-Husna), examples like Ar-Rahman (The Entirely Merciful), Ar-Rahim (The Especially Merciful). Beside these Arabic names, Muslims of non-Arab origins may also sometimes use other names in their own languages to refer to God, such as Khuda in Persian, Bengali and Urdu. Tangri or Tengri was used in the Ottoman Turkish language as the equivalent of Allah.
Sufism.
In Tasawwuf, the inner, mystical dimension of Islam, Hu, Huwa (depends on placement in sentence), or Parvardigar in Persian are used as names of God. The sound Hu derives from the last letter of the word Allah, which is read as Allahu when in the middle of a sentence. Hu means "Just He" or "Revealed". The word explicitly appears in many verses of the Quran:
Baháʼí Faith.
The scriptures of the Baháʼí Faith often refer to God by various titles and attributes, such as Almighty, All-Possessing, All-Powerful, All-Wise, Incomparable, Gracious, Helper, All-Glorious, and Omniscient. Baháʼís believe the Greatest Name of God is "All-Glorious" or ' in Arabic. ' is the root word of the following names and phrases: the greeting ' (God is the All-Glorious), the invocation ' (O Thou Glory of the Most Glorious), "" (The Glory of God), and "Baháʼí" (Follower of the All-Glorious). These are expressed in Arabic regardless of the language in use (see Baháʼí symbols). Apart from these names, God is addressed in the local language, for example "Ishwar" in Hindi, "Dieu" in French and "Dios" in Spanish. Baháʼís believe Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, is the "complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God".
Mandaeism.
Mandaeans believe in one God called "Hayyi Rabbi" (The Great Life or The Great Living God). Other names for God used include "Mare d'Rabuta" (Lord of Greatness), "Mana Rabba" (The Great Mind), "Melka d'Nhura" (King of Light) and "Hayyi Qadmaiyi" (The First Life).
Indian religions.
Hinduism.
There are multiple names for God's various manifestations worshiped in Hinduism. Some of the common names for these Deities in Hinduism are:
Additionally, most Hindu deities have a collection of 8/12/16/32/100/108/1000/1008 names exclusively dedicated to them known as "Namavali".
Arya Samaj.
Maharishi Dayanand in his book "Vaghasiya Ayush" has listed 100 names of God each representing some property or attribute thereof mentioning “Om or Aum” as God's personal and natural name. Chanting "Om" and other Sanskrit mantras has been associated with beneficial cognitive effects, e.g. activation of areas of the brain associated with memory.
Jainism.
Jainism rejects the idea of a creator deity responsible for the manifestation, creation, or maintenance of this universe. According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents (soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion) have always existed. All the constituents and actions are governed by universal natural laws and an immaterial entity like God cannot create a material entity like the universe. Jainism offers an elaborate cosmology, including heavenly beings ("devas"), but these beings are not viewed as creators; they are subject to suffering and change like all other living beings, and must eventually die.
Jains define godliness as the inherent quality of any soul characterizing infinite bliss, infinite power, Perfect knowledge and Perfect peace. However, these qualities of a soul are subdued due to karmas of the soul. One who achieves this state of soul through right belief, right knowledge and right conduct can be termed as god. This perfection of soul is called "Kaivalya" (Omniscience). A liberated soul thus becomes a god – liberated of miseries, cycles of rebirth, world, "karmas" and finally liberated of body as well. This is called "nirvana" or "moksha".
If godliness is defined as the state of having freed one's soul from karmas and the attainment of enlightenment/Nirvana and a god as one who exists in such a state, then those who have achieved such a state can be termed gods/"Tirthankara". Thus, Rishabhanatha was god/"Tirthankara" but he was not the only "Tirthankara"; there were many other "Tirthankara". However, the quality of godliness is one and the same in all of them.
Jainism does not teach the dependency on any supreme being for enlightenment. The Tirthankara is a guide and teacher who points the way to enlightenment, but the struggle for enlightenment is one's own. Moral rewards and sufferings are not the work of a divine being, but a result of an innate moral order in the cosmos; a self-regulating mechanism whereby the individual reaps the fruits of his own actions through the workings of the karmas.
Jains believe that to attain enlightenment and ultimately liberation from all karmic bonding, one must practice the ethical principles not only in thought, but also in words (speech) and action. Such a practice through lifelong work towards oneself is called as observing the "Mahavrata" ("Great Vows").
Gods can be thus categorized into embodied gods also known as "Tīrthankaras and Arihantas" or ordinary "Kevalis", and non-embodied formless gods who are called "Siddhas". Jainism considers the "devīs" and "devas" to be souls who dwell in heavens owing to meritorious deeds in their past lives. These souls are in heavens for a fixed lifespan and even they have to undergo reincarnation as humans to achieve "moksha".
Sikhism.
There are multiple names for God in Sikhism. Some of the popular names for God in Sikhism are:
In the Sikh scripture, both Hindu and Muslim names of the Supreme Being are also commonly employed, expressing different aspects of the divine Name. For instance, names like Ram (pervading), Hari (shining), Parmeshwar (supreme lord), and Jagdish (world lord) refer to Hindu terms, while names like Allah (Arabic for God), Khuda (Persian for God), Rahim (merciful), Karim (generous), and Sahib (lord) are of Muslim origin.
God, according to Guru Nanak, is beyond full comprehension by humans; has endless number of virtues; takes on innumerable forms, but is formless; and can be called by an infinite number of names thus "Your Names are so many, and Your Forms are endless. No one can tell how many Glorious Virtues You have."
The word Allah (ਅਲਹੁ) is used 12 times in the Guru Granth Sahib by Sheikh Farid. Guru Nanak Dev, Guru Arjan Dev and Bhagat Kabeer used the word 18 times.
Persian religions.
Yazidism.
Yazidism knows only one eternal God often named Xwedê. According to some Yazidi hymns (known as Qewls), God has 1001 names.
Zoroastrianism.
In Zoroastrianism, 101 names of God (Pazand "Sad-o-yak nam-i-khoda") is a list of names of God (Ahura Mazda). The list is preserved in Persian, Pazand and Gujarati. Parsi tradition expanded this to a list of "101 names of God".