Job Family History

German French Polish Czech Slovak Croatian and Slovenian; Hungarian (Jób): from the personal name (Hebrew Iyyob) borne by a Biblical character, the central figure in the Book of Job, who was tormented by God and yet refused to forswear Him. The name has been variously interpreted as ‘Where is the (divine) father?’ and ‘Persecuted one’. The surname may also be a nickname for a wretched person or one tormented with boils (which was one of Job's afflictions). Compare Yob; see also 5 below.

English: from the Middle English personal name Jop(e), Joppe, or Job(be) (perhaps also Jubbe). The name may have more than one source, but it was certainly a pet form of Geoffrey (see Jeffrey). Joppe was originally a pet form of Joffrey, an Old French side-form of Geoffrey. The change of final /f/ to /p/ is the same as that in Jeff(e) to Jepp(e) (see Jepson).

English: perhaps from a Middle English pet form of Old French Jobert; compare Jobin. English: nickname from Middle English joppe (medieval Latin joppus) ‘fool’, perhaps related to 16th-century French jobe ‘simpleton’. Compare Middle English jobard and jobet ‘blockhead, fool’.

English: perhaps also from the Biblical personal name Job (see 1 above), which does not seem to have been used as a personal name in Britain in the Middle Ages, and the commonly held beliefs (for example in Bardsley, Weekley, and Reaney and Wilson) that Job was a (frequent) character in the medieval mystery plays and that this gave rise to a popular Middle English personal name have no foundation.