What’s in a Name?: Using Different Languages’ Names for God

EMQ » Jul – Sept 2026 » Volume 62 Issue 3

Summary: Many Christians are unsure whether it is okay to use Allah and Isa for God and Jesus. In many Muslim-majority contexts, believers do use these names. However, patterns vary in the use or avoidance of these names. Iranian believers use Isa but not Allah. Malay believers use Allah but not Isa. Recent research into pre-Islamic Arabic has thrown new light on the origins and early use of these terms among Christian Arabs. It is important to realize that the authority found in the name of Jesus is not dependent on the precise phonetic form used to name him.

By Mark Durie

Many Christians are confused about how followers of Jesus in Islamic cultural contexts should refer to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Should they use names whose form is taken from the Hebrew of the Old Testament or the Greek of the New, or should they use Arabic forms, which are familiar in their culture but may be distinctively Islamic? What principles should guide such decisions? The answers have implications for evangelism, for discipleship, for Bible translation, for ecumenical fellowship, and for peaceful coexistence. This is a challenging question. People can come to opposite conclusions, generating divisive disagreement.

While Christians have spilled much ink over the important and not unrelated question of whether Muslims and Christians worship the same God,[i] the question of how to name God is surely distinct from that of his identity. The same holds true for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The naming question is important for Christian believers from Muslim backgrounds. It is also highly relevant for Christians without a background in Islam who find themselves in majority Islamic contexts. For example, Indonesian and Malaysian Christians, most of whom do not have an Islamic background, have for centuries been referring to God as Allah. Yes, this has been influenced by Islam. On the other hand, they name Jesus as Yesus, following the Greek Yesous.[ii]

There is no single pattern for choosing names for God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. For example, the situation among Iranian converts to Christianity is the opposite to Indonesia and Malaysia. Iranian converts refer to God as Khoda, rejecting the word Allah as both too Arab and too Islamic. However, they retain the Qur’anic Isa for Jesus. Iranian converts to Christianity have also adopted ruhol ghodos, from the Qur’anic Arabic rūḥ al-qudus – who many Muslim commentators have identified as an angel[iii] – to refer to the Holy Spirit.

When words make their way from one language into another they normally are changed. Consider the English name Jesus. This was from Latin Jesus, which was taken from Greek Yesous. The Greek, in its turn, was based on Aramaic Yeshua, which was a form of Hebrew Yehoshua, which means ‘Yahweh is salvation.’ In English Bibles, we normally render the Old Testament Yehoshua as Joshua. Yet, in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), Joshua is Yesous, the same as the name of Jesus in the Greek New Testament. Indeed, since Joshua and Jesus are just different forms of the same name, Christians could just as well call Jesus Joshua or Yehoshua. We could rightfully declare that every knee will bow before the name of Joshua (Philippians 2:10).

Many Messianic Jewish believers today prefer to call Jesus Yeshua, using the Aramaic form of Jesus’ name. This is almost certainly what Mary called her son. We know that Yeshua was a very common name among Jews around the time of Christ.[iv]

In the Greek Yesous, the final s is not actually part of the name. It is a grammatical ending. So, when translating the Bible into a new language, translators will sometimes use a word that sounds like Yesu and sometimes use a word that sounds like Yesus. Both work equally well.

Why explore these technical details? My point is that when Christians refer to Jesus in diverse languages, they do not necessarily stick closely to the original sound of the name by which Jesus would have been known, which was Yeshua. Various adaptations take place. Consider that Jesus and Yeshua, rendered in English, have no sound in common.[v]

Changes have also occurred to some other New Testament names as they made their way into English and other languages. Consider, for example, that the Hebrew name of Jesus’ mother was Mīryām, but hers ended up in the English New Testament as Mary not Miriam. The Hebrew name Yaʿaqōv is rendered in the English New Testament as James, but in the Old Testament as Jacob. The Joanna of the gospels ended up in Irish, via Latin, as Siobhan.

Allah

Let us consider Allāh, the name of God for Muslims.

The word allāh originated as a contraction of al-‘ilah ‘the god’. It seems this contraction was first introduced among the Nabataeans to refer to a pagan deity. It paralleled the origin of the proper name allāt for a prominent Nabataean goddess. This was also a contraction, from al-ʾilāt ‘the goddess’.

There is an extensive scholarly literature on the origin and function of the god Allāh among pagan Arabs.[vi] Al-Jallad has recently argued that in ancient Arab pagan cosmology, as reflected in rock inscriptions, Allāh referred to a light-giving, creator deity.[vii] Sinai found that in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, Allāh was the deity who created the world, provides rain, exercises supremacy over creation, and determines the outcome of events.[viii]

Although Allāh is rarely invoked directly in Arabic inscriptions – other gods are mentioned much more often – the form (a)llāh does show up frequently in theophoric personal names, such as abdallāh. These theophoric names appear to embed references to ‘the god’ rather than to Allāh in particular. Contractions occurred when words were put together to create names. For example, in inscriptions, the name wahballāh meant ‘gift of the god’, not ‘gift of Allāh’, and Nabūllāh meant ‘Nabū is the god’, not ‘Nabū is Allāh’.[ix]

We know from early rock inscriptions in the centuries before Islam that Christian Arabs would refer to God as al-‘ilah – literally ‘the god’ – rather than the pagan form allāh.[x] Perhaps these early Arab Christians wanted to keep their word for God distinct from the name of the pagan deity Allāh. Furthermore, the expression al-‘ilah is a word-for-word equivalent of the Greek NT phrase ho theos ‘the god’.[xi] 

Some have suggested that Allāh was a direct borrowing from Aramaic ʾalāhā, but this has been refuted by Kiltz.[xii] Note that the initial vowel of Allāh is epenthetic and it is absent when the preceding word ends in a vowel. An example is bi-smi llāh ‘in the name of God’. This is also a property of the Arabic definite article (a)l-. In this respect Allāh acts phonologically as a contraction of al-ʾilāh, not as a form borrowed from Aramaic.

Although there can be a clear distinction in pre-Islamic Arabic between Christian al-ʾilah and pagan Allāh, it is possible that by the time of Muhammad some Christian Arabs were referring to God as Allāh. Early, pre-Islamic Arabic poetry had at times used allāh and al-ʾilah interchangeably.[xiii] 

As Al-Jallad has pointed out, the later adoption by Christians (and Jews) of Allāh to refer to God, despite its earlier pagan sense, could have been favored by the alignment of the pagan concept of a light-bringing creator god with the biblical creation narrative of Genesis 1. (Al-Jallad 2025) By the time we have the earliest Arabic Bible translations, they are using the form Allāh for God. The ancient Arabic-speaking churches of the Middle East still refer to God as Allāh to this day.

Isa

This brings us to the Qur’anic word for Jesus, ‘Īsā. In contrast to the situation with Allāh, most Middle Eastern Arabic-speaking Christians do not use the Islamic form ʿĪsā for Jesus. Rather, they call him Yasūʿ, which was taken from Syriac, a Christian form of Aramaic widely spoken around the time Islam appeared.

Many scholars have attempted to explain where this form ‘Īsā came from, and various ingenious theories have been put forward. The problem is that the sounds of the name ‘Īsā cannot be derived transparently and directly from any known contemporary source language. The most convincing explanation has been put forward recently by Ahmad Al-Jallad, the leading expert on early Arabic inscriptions (Al-Jallad and Al-Manaser 2021). He reported the discovery of an Arabic inscription in Jordan in which someone calls for help to a deity named ʿsy.[xiv]We know from other rock inscriptions that ʿsy was already in use among Arabs as a personal name. Al-Jallad proposes that this is the same word as the Qur’anic term for Jesus, as it is comprised of the same consonants. He suggests that this is a Christian inscription and the name ʿsy was used as Jesus’ Arabic name because it sounded similar to an already existing Arabic name, and because this word also happened to have the meaning ‘redeemer’. This form was not a direct phonological match for the sound of Jesus’ name in Syriac, but it was similar enough in sound, and its meaning, ‘redeemer’, also matched Jesus well. This kind of borrowing is common in Arabic and Hebrew. It is known as phono-semantic matching, in which there is partial, though inexact, similarity in sound, and the meaning partially matches as well.

If Al-Jallad is right, then the Qur’an adopted an already established Christian Arabic form of Jesus’ name. In this case, ʿĪsā was not a distortion of a Christian term, but a straightforward adoption of a pre-existing Christian Arabic name for Jesus. It would therefore be incorrect to see the name ʿĪsā as a replacement or overriding of a Christian tradition, as some scholars have done. Quite the contrary.

If I had a choice in translating the Bible into a new language, I would prefer to use a name for Jesus that is as close as possible to Jesus’ Aramaic name, Yeshua. Why shouldn’t we prefer to call Jesus by a form of his name that is close to how his own family and disciples named him? However, the practice of importing biblical names into diverse languages often involves sound changes. So, when a particular Christian group has already developed a long-established and accepted practice of using a particular form, there is a case for continuing this practice, even if it has been influenced by Qur’anic Arabic. For example, the Iranian church, made up of hundreds of thousands of converts from Islam, uses Isa for Jesus, and there is no compelling reason to force a change.

A name influenced by Qur’anic Arabic can run the risk of Islamizing Christian language. However, given the great variability in how biblical names are rendered, even in English translations of the New Testament, cleansing Christian language of traces of Qur’anic Arabic need not be such a high priority.

Demanding that Iranians avoid the word Isa is like insisting that English-speaking Christians should only refer to Jesus as Yeshua, Mary as Miriam, and James as Jacob. In a way, it is a pity that the Jewish character of New Testament names has been so obscured by Greek and Latin, so I would be content to worship in a congregation that used names which are closer to Hebrew or Aramaic. However, names are very personal things. Changing the way millions of people refer to Jesus in order to more closely match the Hebrew and Aramaic of the New Testament is not a pressing need for English-speaking gentile churches.

Power in the Name

Let us now move the discussion to another level. The Bible emphasizes the authority that exists in the name of Yeshua (or Yehoshua or Joshua or Jesus or Yasūʿ or Yesu). Does the same authority exist in the name Isa when used by followers of Jesus? I believe it can. I have seen demons flee at the name Isa just as readily as before the name Jesus. When an Iranian believer calls upon the name of Isa, the demons know exactly who they are talking about. And so does God.

Likewise, I have seen healing miracles done in the name of Isa. Let me share two testimonies.

One of our Iranian congregation members, Reza,[xv] fled Iran due to government persecution. He had been severely beaten by the security forces, which put him into a coma. After some weeks, Reza emerged from the coma, only to discover that one side of his body was paralyzed. One day, he was lying in bed at home watching satellite television when his wife went out on an errand. As he lay there, a Christian preacher appeared on the screen. In his message, the preacher urged viewers to call upon the name of Isa. Reza drifted off to sleep. While he slept, he had a dream. He found himself in a garden at night. A wind was blowing. As he peered through the gloom, he saw a light coming towards him. As the light came closer, he could see a man carrying a cross, surrounded by Roman soldiers. After a little while, the group began to move away. Just then, the figure carrying a cross looked straight at Reza. Reza wanted to call out, but couldn’t. The group began to leave. Suddenly, Reza found his voice and cried out, “Isa!”

At that very point, Reza woke up. His whole body felt hot, so he reached out to pick up a glass of water. As he drank, he realized he was using his paralyzed arm. He got out of bed and found he could use both his legs. He was jumping up and down, shouting for joy. Neighbors came to see what had happened. They were amazed and asked him which Muslim saint had done this for him.

I had the privilege of baptizing Reza in Melbourne, Australia. Before his baptism he gave his testimony. He told us he had waited seven long years for that day.

Another of our congregation members, also an Iranian refugee, was deeply troubled about her mother, who, back in Iran, was battling breast cancer. It was a Saturday. We were holding a service in the afternoon in Australia while her mother was getting ready to be admitted to hospital for major surgery on the following Monday morning. The surgery was to remove the large tumor in her breast.

That Saturday afternoon, I happened to be preaching that “there is power in the name of Jesus,” which the interpreter translated as be name Isa, meaning“in the name of Jesus.” The woman whose mother had cancer was deeply impacted by the message. When the service finished, she came and stood before a large cross at the front of the church, praying in Farsi, be name Isa, for her mother’s healing.

The following week, this woman came to see me. She explained that her mother had been due to have surgery. She had spent the previous Saturday night in pain, caused by the cancer. But on Sunday the pain receded. And when her mother went to the hospital on Monday morning to be prepped for surgery, she underwent one final scan. To the medical team’s amazement, the cancer had completely disappeared!

When the daughter in Australia told me what had happened, she said, “Pastor Mark, it is true! As you said! There is power in the name of Isa!”

To which I could only say, “Amen!”

Conclusion

It is good to reflect on the origins of the names we use for God and Jesus. Names matter. They can be powerful. When translating biblical names we should proceed thoughtfully. Although it makes sense to use names which are close in form to the names used by Jesus and his disciples, this does not mean we should insist that worshiping communities change the forms of names they use, in order to satisfy a puristic ideal. The power that is inherent in the name of Jesus is not dependent upon its exact phonetic form. Rather, it comes from the One the name points us to.

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[i] See Mark Durie, Which God? Jesus, Holy Spirit, God in Christianity and Islam Rev. ed. (Deror Books, 2015) and Miroslav Volf, Allah: A Christian Response (HarperOne, 2010).

[ii] In 2009 Malaysian government banned Christians from using Allah for God; however, this ban was overturned by the Malaysian High Court in 2021.

[iii] See, for example, Ibn Kathīr, Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged) (Darussalam, 2003), 5:526.

[iv] Ilan Tal, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity Part I: Palestine 330 BCE–200 CE (J.C.B. Mohr, 2002), 126–129.

[v] This becomes clearer when we use phonetic scriptː in English, Jesus is pronounced [ˈɟiːzɘz] and Yeshua is pronounced [jɛˈʃua].

[vi] See Ahmad al-Jallad, “Ancient Allah: An Epigraphic Reconstruction,” Journal of Semitic Studies (2025): 1–156; David Kiltz, “The Relationship Between Arabic Allāh and Syriac Allāhā,” Der Islam 88 (2012), 33–50; Laïla Nehmé, “The Religious Landscape of Northwest Arabia as Reflected in the Nabataean, Nabataeo-Arabic, and Pre-Islamic Arabic Inscriptions,” in Fred McGraw Donner and Hasselbach-Andee Rebecca (eds.), Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia Circa 500-700 CE. (The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2022), 43-86; Christian Julien Robin, “Allāh Avant Muḥammad,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 49 (2020), 1–145; Nicolai Sinai, Rain-Giver, Bone-Breaker, Score-Settler: Allāh in Pre-Quranic Poetry (American Oriental Society, 2019).

[vii] Al-Jallad, “Ancient Allah.”

[viii] Sinai, Rain-Giver.

[ix] Kiltz, “The Relationship,” 39.

[x] See Robin, “Allāh avant Muhammad,” 89; Sinai, Rain-Giver, 7 reports that the Christian title al-‘ilah is attested up until the sixth century in inscriptions.

[xi] Rick Brown’s claim that “Arabic-speaking Christians were using the form Allah before the rise of Islam” is not supported by the evidence of inscriptions. See Rick Brown, “Who is “Allah”,” International Journal of Frontier Missions 23:2 (2006), 80. Brown’s conclusion was based on a single reading of an inscription which he acknowledged was disputed. We have much better understanding of early Arabic inscriptions now than we did in 2006.

[xii] Kiltz, “The Relationship”.

[xiii] See Sinai Rain-Giver, 7–8. However, this variation could have been an artefact of later edits made to poems in the Islamic era.

[xiv] In such rock inscriptions only the consonants are written.

[xv] His name has been changed.

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EMQ, Volume 62, Issue 3. Copyright © 2026 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: [email protected].