Jafet is a form of Japheth, a Hebrew biblical name traditionally interpreted as meaning enlargement or expansion.
Jafet is the Spanish and Portuguese form of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, alongside Shem and Ham. The Hebrew name Yefet is generally interpreted to mean 'may God enlarge' or 'beautiful,' though the precise etymology is debated by biblical scholars.
In the Genesis narrative, after the flood Japheth's descendants spread across the earth, and in the traditional Table of Nations he is considered the ancestor of the peoples of Europe and parts of Asia — a role that gave the name extraordinary symbolic weight in medieval and early modern religious thought. Throughout the Catholic world, Jafet was transmitted via the Latin Vulgate Bible as a recognizable if uncommon baptismal name, carried with particular affection in Spanish-speaking communities in Latin America, where biblical names from the Old Testament — including less common ones like Jafet, Noé, and Esdras — have a stronger presence than in much of the English-speaking world. This reflects both the deep influence of Catholic scriptural culture and a naming tradition that reaches further into the Bible than the more familiar New Testament names.
In literary history, the name has appeared occasionally in medieval chronicles and in post-Reformation biblical allegory, where the three sons of Noah were sometimes read as symbolic representatives of humanity's broad racial and geographic spread. Today, Jafet is chosen primarily by families in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean who want a name that is distinctly biblical, slightly uncommon, and carries a sense of ancient solemnity without the ubiquity of a name like Noah or Samuel.