Names of God

There are various names of God and many titles that refer to God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word god is used by multiple religions as a noun 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. It is connected to the passage in in which God gives his name as אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, where the verb may be translated most basically as "I Am that I Am", "I shall be what I shall be", or "I shall be what I am". In the passage, YHWH, 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 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. Guru Gobind Singh's Jaap Sahib, which contains 950 names of God is one example of this. 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 and related religions

Judaism

comes from a root word meaning "god" or "deity", reconstructed in the Proto-Semitic language as ʾil. 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. The root Eloah is used in poetry and late prose and ending with the masculine plural suffix -im ים creating a word like ba`alim and adonim 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 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". 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, 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. Mark Sameth argues that Yahweh was a pseudo name for a dual-gendered deity, the four letters of that name being cryptogram which the priests of ancient Israel read in reverse as, 'he–she', as earlier theorized by Guillaume Postel and .

Christianity

In Christianity, the Old Testament reveals YHWH as the personal name of God. References, such as The New Encyclopædia Britannica, affirm the vocalization "Yahweh" by offering additional specifics to its 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.

Jah or Yah is an abbreviation of Jahweh/Yahweh/Jehovah. It appears in certain translations of the Bible, such as the Revised Standard Version, and is used by Christians in the interjection Hallelujah, meaning "Praise Jah", which is used to give Jahweh glory. In Christianity, certain hymns dedicated to God invoke the divine name using the vocalization Jehovah, such as Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.
The Hebrew personal name of God YHWH is rendered as "the " in many translations of the Bible, with Elohim being rendered as "God"; certain translations of Scripture render the Tetragrammaton with Yahweh or Jehovah in particular places, with the latter vocalization being used in the King James Version, Tyndale Bible, and other translations of the Bible from that time period and later. Many English translations of the Bible translate the tetragrammaton as Lord#Religion|, 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 as God and ho kurios as "the Lord", with the latter being the "Greek translation of the Hebrew OT name for God, Yahweh."
Jesus was a common alternative form of the name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling, from which comes the English spelling Jesus. Christ means 'the anointed' in Greek. is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah; while in English the old Anglo-Saxon Messiah-rendering hæland.
In the Book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament, God, that is, Jesus is quoted as saying "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End".
Some Quakers refer to God with the title of the Light. Another term used is King of Kings or Lord of Lords and Lord of Hosts. In addition to the personal name of God YHWH, titles of God used by Christians include the Hebrew titles Elohim, El-Shaddai, and Adonai, as well as Ancient of Days, Father/Abba which is Hebrew, "Most High". Abba is a common term used for the creator within Christianity because it was a title Jesus used to refer to God the Father.

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 is worshipped and given all glory through his Son, Jesus Christ. Despite the Godhead doctrine, which teaches that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate, divine beings, many Mormons 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

believe that God has a distinctive name, represented in the Old Testament by the Tetragrammaton. In English, they prefer to use the form Jehovah. According to their New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, the name Jehovah means "He causes to become".
Though scholars prefer the form Yahweh, Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that the name Jehovah is the most well known form in English. Their literature compares the use of the form Jehovah in English to the widespread use of Jesus in English as a translation of or.