MEANING & HISTORY
What does Job mean?
Job is a biblical personal name transmitted through Greek and Latin from Hebrew Iyyov. The dictionary relates the older form to enemy vocabulary, while the editorial account renders it persecuted or hated.
These explanations concern a difficult inherited name, not a description of the person receiving it. Job is unrelated in formation to the modern English noun for employment. The biblical character’s endurance is a later narrative association; patient is therefore not a literal replacement for the older lexical explanations.
References for this explanation
Pronunciation & syllables
Dictionary readings are kept by language. Select the reading that matches your intended pronunciation. Dots show the source’s written divisions; they are not a universal syllable count across languages.
English
- /d͡ʒəʊb/Received-Pronunciation
- /d͡ʒoʊb/General-American
- /d͡ʒɒb/colloquial
- /d͡ʒɔb/colloquial
Wiktionary contributors / Kaikki / Wiktextract · CC BY-SA 4.0
Origin and name formation
Language-specific accounts from the dictionary. A shared spelling can have more than one history.
EnglishEtymology & source
From Latin Iob, from Ancient Greek Ἰώβ (Iṓb), from Biblical Hebrew אִיּוֹב (ʾiyyōḇ), related to אָיַב (ʾāyaḇ, “to be an enemy”) and אוֹיֵב (ʾōyēḇ, “enemy”).
A male given name from Hebrew.
Adapted from Wiktionary contributors via Kaikki/Wiktextract. Source accounts remain in their original English; editorial summaries and filters are adapted. Attribution and downloads
People with the name Job
Public figures and other documented namesakes linked by an explicit given-name claim. This is a selection of records, not a popularity ranking.
DOCUMENTED NAMESAKE
Job Mayo
Filipino amateur wrestler
The record establishes the name association, not the person’s intended meaning, pronunciation or ancestry. Descriptions are attributed to Wikidata contributors (CC0).
Use in Philippine-linked records
Public-record transcription
2
eligible source records · 2001
This spelling is reported in an openly licensed transcription of elected-candidate records. This is a record count, not a birth count or national popularity measure.
OpenHalalan / COMELEC ↗Wikidata
1
distinct person records with an explicit given-name claim
Community-edited coverage, not a census or birth registry. Examples: Job Mayo
PSA · OFFICIAL BIRTH RECORDS
Job in the birth records
Exact spelling and stated year in the published name tables. Read the counts as individual snapshots.
Tables included: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The 2016 fact sheet lists five names per sex; the later tables include ten. Missing counts are not inferred. Sex categories follow the official tables, independently of dictionary gender labels. Explore the official tables →
Similar names to Job
Names with a similar opening or ending, ordered by spelling distance. Similar spelling does not imply the same meaning or origin.
Names in this collection
- Joe♂Short form of Joseph
- Joi♀Joy, a variant spelling of the English word-name
- Jon♂Short form of Jonathan or a form of John
- Joy♀Joy or gladness
- Joan♀English form of Joanna; God is gracious
- Joar♂Horse + army or warrior, from Old Norse Jóarr
- Jodi♀Feminine variant of the familiar name Jody
- Joel♂Yahweh is God
What rhymes with Job?
No dictionary-confirmed rhyme match is available for this spelling in the current catalogue.
Explore Job further
Follow the sources
- OpenHalalan — pinned 2001 COMELEC transcription (opens in a new tab)
Source-reported given-name form in a row with a separate explicit middle initial; ODbL-1.0.
- COMELEC — 2001 List of Elected Candidates (opens in a new tab)
Original document identified by the transcription; selected PDF entries were spot-checked, not every imported row.
- Wikidata given-name item Q2569062 — Job (opens in a new tab)
Given-name identity, native labels, language associations and explicit class where present; not lexical meaning or population frequency.
- Wikidata — Job Mayo (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q2569062 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wiktionary contributors — Job (English) (opens in a new tab)
Language-specific given-name etymology; shared spelling does not prove every bearer has this origin.
- Behind the Name — job (opens in a new tab)
Consulted editorial entry, not user submissions: Hebrew Iyyov interpreted persecuted/hated; distinguish narrative virtue from etymology.