Why is Ιακωβος translated James rather than Jacob?

Q. Why is Ιακωβος translated “James” rather than “Jacob”? [i]

A. First, note that the inspired New Testament writers used Ιακωβ when referring to the Old Testament patriarch Jacob, but Ιακωβος when referring to Jesus’s “contemporaries” (the two apostles, Matthew 10:2-3; and his half-brother, Galatians 1;19).[ii] The Greek ιακωβ (translated Jacob) appears 27 times in 25 verses in the King James Bible and the 1894 Scrivener Greek New Testament.[iii] It always appears in that form when referring to people who are “before” Jesus, but never restricted to that form concerning his contemporaries. A name in Greek can have different endings (making it appear to be different), depending on how it is used in the sentence (i.e., the case in which it is used). In accord with that, the names of Jesus’s contemporaries appear in the Greek New Testament in the following forms: ιακωβον (accusative case) /ιακωβος (nominative case) /ιακωβου (genitive case) /ιακωβω (dative case). In contrast, Ιακωβ does not change forms according to usage. For example, whether it is used as a nominative/subject in John 4:5 (Jacob gave) or as genitive/possessive in John 4:6 (Jacob’s well), it is always Ιακωβ. Concerning this, the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG) says that Ιακωβ (יַעֲקֹב) is “the un-Grecized form of the OT, is reserved for formal writing, and esp. for the patriarch.”

The answer, then, begins in the different New Testament usage, transferred into the English language. The other half of the answer is found in the English language itself. This distinction between “Jacob” and “James” goes back in English Bibles to Wycliffe (1382). The earlier Anglo-Saxon Gospels, on the other hand, use Iacob for the patriarch, but the Iacobe /Iacobes /Iacobum /Iacobus forms for the contemporaries. Therefore, sometime between the 700s and 1380, it seems the Anglo language developed a change of name for Iacobus to James, or at least a preference for James over Iacobus. Tyndale and other English translations followed Wycliffe in this.

Oxford English Dictionary entry gives the following information:

“Old French James (Gemmes, *Jaimes) = Spanish Jaime, Provençal, Catalan Jaume, Jacme. Italian Giacomo < popular Latin * ‘Jacomus, for ‘Jacobus, altered from Latin Ia’cōbus, < Greek Ιακωβος, < Hebrew yaʿăqōb Jacob, a frequent Jewish name at all times, and thus the name of two of Christ’s disciples (St. James the Greater and St. James the Less); whence a frequent Christian name.”[iv]

The Online Etymology Dictionary has for “James”:

“masc. proper name, New Testament name of two of Christ’s disciples, late 12c. Middle English vernacular form of Late Latin Jacomus (source of Old French James, Spanish Jaime, Italian Giacomo), altered from Latin Jacobus (see Jacob).”

The progression of the name from Hebrew to English seems to be this:

• Hebrew       Yaʿaqob
• Greek          Ιακωβος
• Latin           Iacobus to Jacomus
• Old French Jammes (Gemmes)
• English       James

As the New Testament, so the King James Bible (as well as most all English translations) maintains and presents a distinction in usage between Jewish and Christian generations of the name Jacob and Jacobus.[v]

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[i] I have capitalized “Ιακωβ” and “Ιακωβος” in places in accommodation or reference to our English style. As far as I can tell, the Koine Greek does not use capitalization in the same manner we do, though some compiled Greek texts do so.
[ii] Matthew also uses “Ιακωβ” twice in his genealogy in reference to Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary (Matthew 1:15-16).
[iii] I did not check other translations or Greek texts. The English name “James” appears in 38 verses of the New Testament in the King James Bible. According to Blue Letter Bible Word Search, ιακωβ occurs 370 times in 337 verses in the Septuagint (LXX).
[iv] Interestingly, I noticed the French Louis Segond Bible has “Jacques” rather than “Gemmes,” where we have “James.”
[v] In contrast, the Tree of Life Version of the Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society uses “Jacob” in all cases, masking the distinction made by the New Testament writers.
[vi] Note: There is a floating Anti-KJV “urban legend” that King James forced the translators to change “Jacobus” to “James” so that his own name would appear in the Bible. (I say “floating” because I have not found a source for this, just “I have heard.” I did find at Church Times that they answered an anonymous question that began with this statement, “Since the King James Version of the Bible, the name Jacob in the Greek New Testament has been rendered as James, as a way of sucking up to the King.”) The mythological nature of this claim is easily seen in that the English translations of the Bible for over 200 years before the King James translation had already used the name “James.”