One of the names of God is in the Bible as YHWH or in the Greek known as the Tetragrammoton. Most Hebrew scholars agree that YHWH is the correct translation but interesting to note Jews do not utter the name of YHWH in fear of offending the creator. In fact Jews today writing the word God in English may infact substitute this by writing G'd.
So how did we arrive at Jehovah and not Yahweh. Here is a wiki blurb
The tetragrammaton (from Greek tet?a???µµat??, meaning "four letters")[1][2] is the Hebrew theonym ????, commonly transliterated into Latin letters as YHWH. It is one of the names of the God of Israel used in the Hebrew Bible.
While YHWH is the most common transliteration of the tetragrammaton in English academic studies, the alternatives YHVH, JHVH and JHWH are also used.[3][4]
Although Yahweh is favored by most Hebrew scholars and is widely accepted as the vocalization of the Tetragrammaton, Jehovah is still used in some translations of the Bible. The Samaritans understood the pronunciation to be iabe. Some patristic sources give evidence for a Greek pronunciation iao.[5]
As religiously observant Jews are forbidden to say or write the Tetragrammaton in full, when reading the Torah they use the word Adonai.[5] And although most Christians have no prohibition on vocalizing the Tetragrammaton, in most Christian translations of the Bible, "LORD" is used in place of the Tetragrammaton, after the Hebrew Adonai, and is often written with small capitals (or in all caps) to distinguish it from other words translated as "Lord". The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be, to exist".[1] ----------------------------------
Researching the origins of Jehovah the name you quickly come to realize it is a Roman Catholic invention of a word. It is truly a RCC invention as it was a late invention post the schism of 1057 that formed the RCC that we know today. Raymundus Martini in 1270 AD is the first person that we know of that penned the word Jehovah which surprise my and I think a lot of others. Here is a RCC site that popped up with Raymundus Martini's name in it with a web search. No big deal for trinitarians but some of the Cult followers may be distressed.
Enjoy.
In Hebrew the name of God is spelled YHWH. Since ancient Hebrew had no written vowels, it is uncertain how the name was pronounced originally, but there are records of the name in Greek, which did have written vowels. These records indicate that in all likelihood the name should be pronounced "Yahweh."
Shortly before the first century A.D., it became common for Jews to avoid saying the divine name for fear of misusing it and breaking the second commandment ("You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain," Dt 5:11). Whenever they read Scripture aloud and encountered the divine name, they substituted another Hebrew word, "Adonai" (which means "Lord" or "my Lord"), in its place.
Eventually Hebrew developed written vowels, which appeared as small marks called vowel points and were placed above and below the consonants of a word. In the sixth or seventh century some Jews began to place the vowel points for "Adonai" over the consonants for "Yahweh" to remind the reader of Scripture to say "Adonai" whenever he read "Yahweh."
About the 13th century the term "Jehovah" appeared when Christian scholars took the consonants of "Yahweh" and pronounced it with the vowels of "Adonai." This resulted in the sound "Yahowah," which has a Latinized spelling of "Jehovah." The first recorded use of this spelling was made by a Spanish Dominican monk, Raymundus Martini, in 1270.
Interestingly, this fact is admitted in much Jehovah's Witness literature, such as their Aid to Bible Understanding (p. 885). This is surprising because Jehovah's Witnesses loathe the Catholic Church and have done everything in their power to strip their church of traces of Catholicism. Despite this, their group's very name contains a Catholic "invention," the name "Jehovah."
Jehovah's Witnesses blast orthodox Christendom for "hiding the name of God" by replacing "Jehovah" with "the Lord" whenever "Jehovah" appears in Scripture. They charge this is a Jewish "superstition" that dishonors God (which it does not). Yet their own organization has a name that was invented as a result of the same thinking that produced use of "the Lord."
