James in Arabic: جيمس, يعقوب, and Which One to Use

James in Arabic is جيمس (Jeems) for an English speaker: our name tool spells it that way, and so does Arabic Wikipedia for James Joyce, James Watt and the others we checked. In the Arabic Bible the apostles called James are يعقوب (Yaʿqūb), the same name as Jacob, because James and Jacob are one Hebrew name.

Copy the form you need. The Listen button reads each spelling in your device's Arabic voice, if it has one, so you can hear how يعقوب and جيمس differ.

James in Arabic calligraphy, in three styles

Renders of جيمس and يعقوب, in Amiri, Reem Kufi and Rakkas, drawn straight from the font files.

يعقوب or جيمس: which spelling should you use?

Use جيمس for an English speaker named James: every title in the table further down has it. Use يعقوب for the New Testament apostles: Arabic Wikipedia calls James the Great يعقوب بن زبدي, James son of Zebedee. يعقوب is also how Arabic writes Jacob, so an Arabic speaker sees one name where English sees two: see Jacob in Arabic.

How Arabic Wikipedia writes people called James

For the apostles named James, Arabic Wikipedia uses the Arabic form. For the four modern people called James in the table below, its titles write جيمس four times. Our name tool gives جيمس, the spelling of James Cameron's article.

How جيمس is spelled, letter by letter

جيمس has four letters, read from right to left, starting with the letter ج, jīm. Every letter of جيمس joins the one after it, so the name is one unbroken shape. It spells the English sound, so every vowel you hear is written as a letter.

What does James mean?

James means what Jacob means, holder of the heel or supplanter, because the two are one Hebrew name, according to Behind the Name. James comes from Late Latin Iacomus, a variant of Iacobus, the Latin form of the Hebrew Yaʿaqov. English kept two names; Behind the Name notes that many languages have one, and Arabic, with its single يعقوب, is one of them. James was the fifth most common name given to boys born in the US in 2024, according to the Social Security Administration's announced 2024 list.

Two related names on this site are Jacob in Arabic, يعقوب and John in Arabic, يحيى. For Arabic names to choose from, browse the Arabic boy names with their meanings, part of our Arabic vocabulary lists.

Write جيمس in more fonts and download it

Paste جيمس into the box below, or into our Arabic calligraphy generator, to draw it in 12 more fonts and save it as a PNG.

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