You won't find any Kabalarians cack here. I did actually take the time to see what they think "Jenova" means, and it's all rubbish and has anything even vaguely to do with the Jenova we're talking about. =P

Jenova's name is most likely derived from "nova" and "jehova", the former meaning "new" and the latter meaning "god". This makes a lot of sense, seeing as Jenova tried (whether intentionally or otherwise) to become a new god by taking over the Planet and its Lifestream. Of course, the Cetra stopped her - but if she had succeeded, she could quite well have become a God and ruled over the humans. Of course, if you believe some of the more victim-themed theories about what Jenova is, you might believe that it's not in Jenova's nature to want to rule a planet. But there's no firm conclusion in this matter, so you're free to believe what you like.

In addition to this, I found the following descripton of Jenova's name at the Squaresoft Repository of Science Fiction and Mythology:

"The name of God in the Old Testament. The word 'Yahweh' (also spelt Yaveh) was originally not pronounced, but a word made up of Hebrew consonants, referred to as the sacred Tetragrammaton and transliterated YHWH to represent God, because it was felt that the Lord's name was ineffable. An alternative spelling of YHWH is JHVH, vocalised 'Jahveh' or more frequently, 'Jehovah'. However, 'Jehovah', the normally adopted English representation of the name, is felt by scholars to be inaccurate because the J-sound does not exist in the Hebrew language. In Final Fantasy VII, the boss Jenova is probably a deliberate mispelling of Jehovah. In Xenogears, Yabeh is another name for the Interplanetary Invasion System Deus. The spelling difference may or may not have been intentional because of the similarities in 'v' and 'b' in the Japanese language."

I read somewhere that in Jeudo-Christian mythology, creatures from the sky (angels) are asexual and have the ability to shapeshift. This explains both Jenova's ability to change her form, and why Ifalna refers to her as "he" or "it" in Professor Gast's videos (I think whether she says "he" or "it" depends on which version of the game you have, although I have yet to confirm this.)

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The following three phrases are all used at least once during the game to describe Jenova:

crisis from the skies
calamity from the skies
disaster from the skies

When I get around to it, I'll find out which one is used in which place. The point is, they are ALL used at least once. Also, the phrase "disaster from the sky" appears on the official Jenova trading card. Which phrase you decide to use is up to you, although "crisis from the skies" is by far the most common.

(I'll add the other screencap when I find it.)

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There are two ideas as to how to pronounce the word "Jenova" - and, at the moment, I'm still not 100% sure which one is correct. I've recorded some very bad sound clips of each one, which are saved in WAV format and are less than 10Kb each. To hear them, click on the "sound clip" link at the end of each paragraph. They're not very good, I'll warn you now... and they're spoken in an English accent rather than American, by the way. =P

This first variation is the most common one, as far as I know. The "know" in the middle is pronounced the same way as you would pronounce the word "know" (i.e. with a silent "k") and the whole thing sounds exactly like "jehova" but with an "n" instead of the first "h". To me, this seems to be the most sensible pronunciation as it ties in with the pronunciation of "jehova" and "nova" in the name meaning above. [sound clip]

The second variation is less common (I think). The "noeh-vah" part is pronounced almost the same way as "never", but slightly softer and with more emphasis on the "oeh" than on the "v". It also has more of an "aeh" sound at the end than "er". [sound clip]

I'd be very interested to hear which of the pronunciation options you use. Please drop me a line and let me know - or, if you pronounce it a different way, include a sound clip of you saying it (keep the file size small, please) and I'll post it here.

Credit: some of the information about the meaning of Jenova's name was adapted from Specimen 0-57-S. The sound clips and pronunciation guidelines were made by me and may not be used on other sites without my permission.