▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl Ann, Hannah, from Hbr ḥannâ ‘grace’, from ḥānan ‘to be(come) gracious’; John, ultimately from Hbr yôḥānān ‘Yahweh has been gracious’, from ḥānān, lengthened form of ḥānan ‘he has been gracious’ (cf. Ar ḥanān; for Hbr yô ‘Yahweh’, cf. Ar ↗√HWY). ▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl Hannibal, from Phoen (Pun) *ḥannī-baʕl ‘my grace (is) Baal’, from *ḥannī ‘my grace’, from *ḥann ‘grace’ (akin to Ar ↗ḥanān; for Phoen *baʕl ‘lord, Baal’, cf. Ar ↗baʕl).
▪ Jeffery1938: »This sole occurrence of the word is in a passage descriptive of John the Baptist. Sprenger, Leben, i, 125,1
noted that the word was probably of foreign origin, and Mingana, Syr Influence, 88, claims that it is the Syr ḥnānā. / The primitive verb [Ar] ḥanna does not occur in the Qurʔān. It may be compared with Sab ḥn used in proper names,2
Hbr ḥānan ‘to be gracious’, and Syr ḥnan, Aram ḥᵃnan with the same meaning. It is to be noted, however, that the sense of ‘grace’ is the one that has been most highly developed in NSem, e.g. Akk annu ‘grace, favour’, Hbr and Phoen ḥēn, Aram ḥnā and ḥynā, Syr ḥnānā, and this ḥnānā is used in the Peshitta text of Lk. i, 58, in the account of the birth of John the Baptist. / Halévy, JA, viiᵉ ser., x, 356, finds ḥn-ʔl ‘grace de Dieu’ in a Safaite inscription, which if correct would be evidence of the early use of the word in NArabia.«