THE NAMES OF THE ONLY GOD...the GOD of Abraham

Those who say that there is no God believe so totally by faith. There is no evidence proving that there is no God. The Bible say that God's creation itself gives testimony that He exists; and believers see that evidence quite easily...because they are willing to see & acknowledge it. 

Jews, Christians, and Muslims have the blessing of having identified and related to the only God (although, disturbingly, the Islamic writings seem to describe a god with attributes which are unlike those of the God of Abraham). All other "gods" are figments and creations within the minds of man. This one true God revealed Himself to Abraham and chose the children (descendants) of Abraham as His own. The first Christians were Jews, and Gentile Christians subsequently came into the fold. As noted below, God Himself declared that His proper name was Yahweh. Being a Jewish capitol offense to misuse the name of God, Yahweh became [ by the time...460BC... of the return from the Babylonian exile] a non-utterable name (Zechariah 24:16) which was denoted in writings as YHWH (old Hebrew has no vowels); and, when this tetragrammaton was read in Hebrew, it was spoken as Adonai.

While we moderns have traditionally used the spoken name Jehovah in place of YHWH, more recent studies indicate that Yahweh is the correct name. The name Yahweh has been found to be unique to Israel and has not been verified as the name of any other deity outside of Israel.

As to Jehovah, beginning at 70 AD with the fall of Jerusalem followed by the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 135 AD and the dispersion of the Jews from The Promised Land away out to the four corners of the world, the speaking of Hebrew fell away except as to religious matters. By the Middle Ages, to aid those not fluent in the reading of Hebrew, the Masoretes (scribes) began to introduce a system of vowel markings to aid in making correct vowel sounds in a language (Hebrew) which did not classically contain vowels. To remind that YHWH was pronounced Adonai, they initially scribed "YaHoWaH", the aoa helping to remember Adonai. Since the "Ya" created some controversy over fear that the initial pronunciation would resemble Yahweh...the unutterable name..., eoa began to substitute for aoa: JeHoWaH. This later became Jehovah.

A small, helpful book for more insight is Names of God, Nathan Stone, Moody Press, 1944. And The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, Merrill F. Unger, 1988, Moody Press, was a resource. And the teacher notes from Focus On The Family's wonderful faith lessons video tape series (1995, 1996), "That The World May Know", featuring teacher and historian, Ray Vander Laan, was a resource.