Janis

Janis as an English feminine name is a mid-twentieth-century variant of Jane, itself derived from the Old French Jehanne and ultimately from the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning God is gracious. It gained widespread recognition largely through the American rock singer Janis Joplin, whose prominence in the 1960s helped cement the spelling as a distinct form. The Latvian masculine form Jānis shares the same Hebrew root through the Latin Iohannes and is one of the most common male names in Latvia, closely associated with the midsummer festival Jāņi. Related forms include Jane, Jan, Jean, Johann, John, and Ivan.