[Gocamino] Basque/Euskara for SJPP

[Tom Priestly]

Not that anyone will need to refer to SJPP in Basque, but its name in that
language is Donibane Garazi. The second Basque word is name for the region,
corresponding to the French "Cize". (The Basque name has nothing
corresponding to "Pied de Port".)
I do not know the language but noticed that the coastal city of San
Sebastian in Basque is Donostia. So, from these two examples (not quite
enough for linguistic analysis, but still...) one may guess that "Don" is
Basque for "Saint".
Remove the "Don" and you are left with "Ibane", which looks suspiciously
like other European names for "John", such as Russian "Ivan", Welsh "Ieuan."
I think the Greek was/is something like "Ioan", and this would presumably
have been close to what the Greeks knew as the original Biblical name (in
Aramaic?): anyway, I suspect that the sequence of vowels was strange for the
speakers of many languages, and they inserted a consonant ‹ so German
finished up with "Johann", Italian with "Giovanni", and so on: "v" in
Russian (and "w" in the original Slavic); and "b" appears to be the insert
in Basque.
And remove the "Don" from "Donostia" and the "Ostia" looks like an
abbreviation of "Seb-astian." My guess is not proved, but is well-supported.

Tom Priestly