Sean

Please don't name your child "old," use the fada/accent and make it seán.

The Irish language doesn't have the sound/ʤ/(the sound which English commonly composes as "J").... Along these lines, when the name Seán/Séan started to be used as an English name, it was used with the standard Irish elocution, which seemed like "Shawn" in English, and later started to be spelled that path also.

Sean seems to be a very ambiguous name. It can mean "ancient" or "happiness" or "god's gift".

Can someone add a history for the name Sean?

According to my Gaelic dictionary the word Sean means: "old, aged, ancient" and is pronounced 'shen'
Another possibility is sèan, meaning: "a charm."
Or the early Irish sén meaning: prosperity.

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My Irish dictionary tells me the meaning of Sean is: "ancestor, senior, old aged, ancient."
Séan meaning: "happiness, good luck" (1) or "deny, disown, renounce" (2).

In Roman Greco Anglo Saxon linguistic terms Sean or Shauni or Shawn and the ALL the various other spellings are all DERIVATIVES and CORRUPTIONS of the source name SEAN also spelt SHAUN. The name tends to be gender specific by country but strangely unisex in terms of international borders.
The corruption is particularly common in "MEN" in the U.K. and in "WOMEN" in the U.S. There are some exceptions however. It sometimes works the opposite way round. You will sometimes find "MEN" in the U.S with the name Shauni. Similiarly, you will sometimes find "WOMEN" in the U.K. with the name Shauni - so don't be fooled into thinking there is any specific long term pertaining pattern to this quirk of linguistics.
The name Shauni is also present in other cultures as a corruption of Shaun.
Celtic Historians in Ireland have cited the name in manuscripts dating back to 850AD although the Roman Greco Anglo Saxon classical usage pre-dates this by 450 years according to Italian and Greek scholars.
Some White Americans have Native Indian ancestry and so prefer to go by the Native Indian interpretation of the name. European and American scholars have maintained that those White Americans who have NOT got Native Indian blood in them all genetically descend from Europe originally and that it is stupid for White Americans who have not got native Indian blood in them to try and assimilate themselves into a culture which is not theirs by following Native Indian likenesses or interpretations of any European names.
(Shauni and the various other spellings were just a tribal tag for a group of native Indians who had absolutely no connection with White Americans even to this day - although other tribes have intermarried with whites).
Scholars also maintain that since White Americans ALL descend from some part of Europe they should follow the European interpretation of European names relating to the part of Europe where the particular name originates from.
In the case of Shauni, its North America's former Master and Supreme ruler Britain which is comprised of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
(The name Shauni and the various other spellings are not part of the Spanish speaking world according to Spanish and South American scholars who have all cited the fact that there is no written evidence for any such name in the Spanish speaking world).
It is entirely a Roman Greco Anglo Saxon invention.

Wait, I don't get it. SEAN is the Gaelic element meaning "old, wise." I would certainly think that the name meant "old" or "wise." I suppose it does sound like "John," but it would make more sense if it meant what the Gaelic element said it did.

Without the fada, the name becomes the Irish (Gaelic) word for "old," which is pronounced "shan" (rhymes with "man"). (I am not suggesting that the name need be conformed to Irish orthography or phonetics when used in English.)

The name Sean is an ancient Gaelic name with multiple menaings but is definitely not the Gaelic or Irish form of John. Considering that the Gaelic language is more than 5,000 years old and the English language is a little over 1500 years old.