How Iscah became Jessica
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare gives the name Jessica to Shylock’s daughter. The name was probably not created from nothing: it appears to be a reshaping of Iscah, a little-known name in the biblical book of Genesis. The change turns a name that would have sounded unfamiliar to many English playgoers into one with a more flowing, memorable sound.
The connection is plausible, not certain. Iscah appears only briefly in Genesis, and the route from that biblical form to Shakespeare’s spelling is unknown. Shakespeare may have adapted it himself, or he may have encountered a variant that has not survived in the record. What can be said more firmly is that the play provides the earliest known appearance of “Jessica” in this form.
A character’s name outlives the play
Jessica is more than a name in the cast list: she is Shylock’s daughter, caught between her father’s household and the Christian world around her. The name’s place in the play gave audiences a vivid character to attach it to—and a spelling they could remember.
Over time, Jessica escaped the stage and became a given name in its own right. That makes Shakespeare’s apparent coinage a small but lasting piece of his influence: a literary adaptation of an obscure biblical name became a familiar name for people who may never have read the play.
