Jonathan
Hebrew origin. Means “gift of God”.
Also used as slang
View on the slang dictionary page →(biblical character) A son of Saul, first mentioned in 1 Samuel.
"Jonathan" means a son of saul, first mentioned in 1 samuel. It is one of many casual words teens pick up from friends, social media, music or sport, and on its own it carries no particular warning. If you hear your teen use it, it is fair to ask what they mean by it in their friend group, since meanings drift quickly. Asking out of curiosity rather than alarm tends to keep the conversation open and useful.
"Jonathan" is informal English meaning a son of saul, first mentioned in 1 samuel. It is used widely across English varieties. A more formal or neutral equivalent would be something like "a son of saul" expressed in standard vocabulary. A common mistake is to assume "Jonathan" can replace its standard equivalent in every register; keep it for spoken or casual situations and use the formal form in writing. If you are a B2 or C1 learner, it is useful to recognise this word when you hear or read it, but think carefully about whether the situation really calls for it before using it yourself.
“I thought I recognized Brit's voice so I looked it up and it's Kid Named Finger! (Jonathan Banks)”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Charles Fefferman, Aalok Gangopadhyay, Matti Lassas, Jonathan Marty, Hariharan Narayanan: Denoising data using convex relaxations https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02327 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.02327 https://arxiv.org/html/2605.02327”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Jonathan Lin, Surya Tokdar: Fast Semiparametric Density Regression with Weight-localized Predictive Recursion https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02146 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.02146 https://arxiv.org/html/2605.02146”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Exiting discoveries about CMTrs and mRNA cap methylation in C. elegans thanks to Jonathan Pettitt @genotripe.bsky.social Berndt Muller @ihaussmann.bsky.social and all the others @mcf-uom.bsky.social @fbmh-uom.bsky.social”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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of biblical origin.
“Arsenal see off Atlético Madrid and feel gnawing fear of failure start to fall away | Jonathan Wilson”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Jonathan Steinberg, Oren Gal MOSAIC-Bench: Measuring Compositional Vulnerability Induction in Coding Agents https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03952”
— Bluesky· May 2026“O look é homenagem ao filme Sabrina (1954), estrelado por Audrey Hepburn; peça foi feita sob medida pela Dior e é assinada pelo estilista Jonathan Anderson.”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Hoping never to see this a-hole again. "Jonathan Pollard, a former US navy intelligence analyst jailed for 30 years for spying for Israel, has said he will stand for election to the Knesset this year on a platform of ethnic cleansing."”
— Bluesky· May 2026“I'm not looking at any local info because I expect it'll just upset me but god please please please let Jonathan Gullis lose up there with Goodwin as a "I don't care who wins as long as they lose" candidate”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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Jonathan Apphus, a son of Mattathias, brother of Joannan Caddis, Simon Thassi, Judas Maccabeus and Eleazar Avara.
: And it came to pass, when he had made an end to speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
“New #Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon says he will adjust his scheme to suit players' strengths apnews.com/article/jona...”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Kristoff and his doppelganger, Jonathan x'D One is awkward, quiet, and would rather be left alone to live in a forest with animals, the other is extremely friendly, charming, and lives to help others. I just love them TwT #warcraftoc #worldofwarcraftart”
— Bluesky· May 2026“New research presented at #HRS2026 by DCRI faculty member Jonathan Piccini, MD, MHS, demonstrates positive findings on Abbott’s pulsed field ablation and pacing technologies for atrial fibrillation care. duke.is/b/37mm #AFib #Cardiology”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Math the Band - Four to Six MV: Jonathan Yi, Sam Goetz Now streaming on ballsack.tv #music #ballsacktv #ballsackradio”
— Bluesky· May 2026“You're absolutely right. Sadly, people who should know better (yes I'm talking about you, Jonathan Cohn) are saying exactly the opposite: bsky.app/profile/jona...”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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