The Tetragrammaton, long regarded by Jewish tradition as being too holy a name to utter, has no certain pronunciation. It is generally believed that 'Yahweh' is a reasonable approximation. The spelling 'Jehovah', while popular, is based upon an erroneous reading of the Hebrew scriptures. In order to remind Jews not to utter the sacred Name, the vowel pointings for 'Adonai' were placed alongside the Tetragrammaton in written texts, which word was substituted therefor. When reading the texts, the scribes that were translating the Hebrew scriptures into Latin mistook the vowel pointings as belonging to the Tetragrammaton itself, and transliterated the Name as 'Jehovah'.

The spelling YHWH (along with the spelling of the Hebrew letter vav as waw), is a result of the German study of Judaism and of the Hebrew language. In German, the letter w is pronounced as an English v; whilst the reading of 'waw' in German leads to an accurate pronunciation of the Hebrew letter, therefore, it can be misleading to readers of English. As such, the spelling 'vav' (and consequently the transliteration 'YHVH') is to be preferred.