Why is Jordan (the country) spelt ヨルダン?


I recently found out that Jordan (the country) is spelt ヨルダン, not ジョーダン, which
is how it's spelt in a person's name.

Is this based on how it's pronounced in Arabic and/or Hebrew, or how it's
pronounced in a European language other than English?




Wikipedia says that Jordan was indeed ジョルダン(・ハシェミット王国) until 2003, when the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed it to ヨルダン(・ハシェミット王国).

Jordan is not pronounced ヨルダン in either Hebrew or Arabic (see
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_River) for a romanization),
but in Hebrew the J is [j] rather than a [dʒ]. Whether the change ジョ > ヨ
occurred because J was known as [j] from Hebrew (via the Latin Bible: Iordanis
"River Jordan" > ヨルダン川, see Chocolate's comment below; also cf. ユダヤ人 "Jew"),
from loanwords from Germanic languages (like Dutch, German, Scandinavian
languages) or from all of those together is unclear. What seems to be clear,
however, is that the Japanese regarded ヨ to be the more natural choice for the
transcription of Jordan into カタカナ, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
decided to change ジョルダン to ヨルダン, together with 59 other country names and 88
place names. (See
[this](http://news2.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/newsplus/1044067260/) archived
newspost from the 朝日新聞). The people of Japan had apparently been complaining
that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was spelling country and place names
differently from everybody else.




Wikipedia says that Jordan was indeed ジョルダン(・ハシェミット王国) until 2003, when the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed it to ヨルダン(・ハシェミット王国).

Jordan is not pronounced ヨルダン in either Hebrew or Arabic (see
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_River) for a romanization),
but in Hebrew the J is [j] rather than a [dʒ]. Whether the change ジョ > ヨ
occurred because J was known as [j] from Hebrew (via the Latin Bible: Iordanis
"River Jordan" > ヨルダン川, see Chocolate's comment below; also cf. ユダヤ人 "Jew"),
from loanwords from Germanic languages (like Dutch, German, Scandinavian
languages) or from all of those together is unclear. What seems to be clear,
however, is that the Japanese regarded ヨ to be the more natural choice for the
transcription of Jordan into カタカナ, when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
decided to change ジョルダン to ヨルダン, together with 59 other country names and 88
place names. (See
[this](http://news2.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/newsplus/1044067260/) archived
newspost from the 朝日新聞). The people of Japan had apparently been complaining
that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was spelling country and place names
differently from everybody else.

