CHAPTER II

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PATRIARCHAL NAMES.

SECTION I.—_Adam._

The oldest of all proper names comes from a word signifying red, and refers to the red earth (adama) out of which the first man was taken, reminding us that dust we are, and unto dust shall we return.

Some say that it should he translated ‘likeness,’ and that it comes from the same root as ‘_adama_,’ red earth, because red earth is always alike, wherever found. In this case, the first man would have been called from his likeness to his Creator, but the other explanation is preferable, especially as the same adjective, pronounced with a change in the vowel sound, so as to make it Edom, was the surname of Esau (hairy), on account both of the ruddiness of his complexion and of the _red_ lentile pottage for which he sold his birthright.

No Israelites or Jews appear to have been called after our first father, and the first time Adam comes to light again, is among the Keltic Christians of Ireland and Scotland. It is not improbable that it was first adopted according to a frequent Gaelic fashion, as the ecclesiastical name most resembling the native one of Aedh or fire; but however this may be, there was in the seventh century a distinguished abbot of Iona, called in the dog Latin of the time, Adamnanus or dwarf Adam, and best known as Adamnan. Though not recognized by the Roman calendar, he was regarded as a saint in his own country, but his name has been much corrupted. At Skreen in Ireland, where he founded a church, he is styled St. Awnan, at Raphoe he is patron, as St. Ennan, in Londonderry he is St. Onan; but in Scotland, Adam has become a national Christian name. The family who most affected it were the ‘gay Gordons.’ _Edie_ is the Scottish contraction. The feminine _Adamina_ has been a recent Scottish invention.

In Germany and the neighbouring countries there prevails an idea that Adam is always long-lived, and if the first infant of a family dies, the life of its successor is secured by calling it either Adam or Eve. In consequence it has various contractions and alterations. In Lower Lusatia it is _Hadamk_ in familiar speech; the Swiss abbreviation is _Odli_; the Esthonian _Ado_ or _Oado_, the Lettisu was _Adums_. With its contraction, _Ade_, it seems to have been very common at Cambrai through the middle ages.

“The mother of all living”—received from the lips of Adam a name signifying life, sounding in the original like _Chavva_, as it began with a rough aspirate. It was not copied by any of her daughters for a long time, and when first the Alexandrian Jews came on it in their translation, they rendered it by _Zoe_ (life), in order to show the connection of the name with the prophecy; but afterwards in the course of the narrative they merely made it Eva, or in Latin the _Heva_ or _Eva_, which English has changed into Eve.

The Eva of Ireland and Scotland, and the Aveline or Eveline of the Normans, were probably only imitations of the old Keltic names Aoibhiun and Aoiffe, and will therefore be considered among the Keltic class.

_Eve_ has been seldom used in England, though old parish registers occasionally show a pair of twins christened Adam and Eve.

The same notion of securing a child’s life that has spread the use of Adam in Germany and its vicinity has had the same effect upon his wife, so that Eva is common in both Germany and Scandinavia. Russia has Evva or Jevva, though not often as a name in use; the Letts as Ewe or Ewusche; the Lithuanians as Jewa or Jewele, the first letter of course pronounced like _Y_; and in Lusatia her namesakes are called Hejba or Hejbka.[5]

The murdered son of Adam is called by a Hebrew word meaning breath, vapour, or transitoriness, and as some think may have been so termed in remembrance of his short life. The sound of the original word was more like Hebel, but through the Greek we receive it as Abel.

It is not absolutely a modern Puritan name, for an Abel existed in Essex in the time of Henry III., and Awel is known in Russia; but it is generally given direct from the Bible, as are also Seth (appointed), and Enoch (dedicated).

Adah (ornament), the wife of Lamech, is often supposed to be the origin of our English Ada, but this last is the hereditary Latinized form of Eed (rich), and is the same as the German Ida. Zillah (or shadow), the other wife of Lamech, is a Gypsy name.

SECTION II.—_Abi._

Common to both the Semitic and Indo-European tongues, and traceable through all their branches, is the parental title first uttered by the infant; Abba, Abi, Aba; Atta among the Slavonians, and again among the Goths; Athair among the Irish, the pater of Greece, fondly called at home papa, and apphys the _pater_ of Rome, the German Vater, and our own father—_il babbo_ in Italy, and daddy in English cottages.

In the East a parent is more usually called the father of his son than by his own name. This, however, is probably a late affectation, not applying to the time when the greatest of the patriarchs received his original name of Abram (father of height or elevation), which was changed by Divine appointment into Abraham (father of a multitude), foretelling the numerous and enduring offspring that have descended from him, and even to the present hour revere his name.

No one, however, seems to have presumed to copy it as long as the Israelites dwelt in their own land, and the first resuscitations of it appear to have been among the Christians of the patriarch’s native land, Mesopotamia, towards the end of the fourth century, when a hermit called Abraham, living near Edessa, obtained a place in the Coptic, Greek, and Roman calendars; and about the same time another Abraham was among the martyrs who were put to death by the fire worshipping zeal of the Sassanid dynasty in Persia. Two other Mesopotamian SS. Abraham lived in the next century, and died, one at Constantinople, the other in Auvergne, whither in some unaccountable manner he had been carried between foul winds and man-stealing barbarians when on a journey to visit the solitaries in Egypt.

As one of the patrons of Clermont, this Abraham must have been the means of diffusing namesakes in France, especially on the side towards the Low Countries. Abraham often occurs in the registers of Cambray; and in compliance with the fashion of adapting the name of the father to the daughter, Abra was there formed, though apparently not earlier than 1644. Indeed the Netherlands and Holland are the only countries where this patriarchal name is really national, generally shortened into Abram and Bram; and the Dutch settlers carried it into America, where it is generally called either Bram or Aby.

Many other Scripture names bear this prefix, but it would be contrary to our plan to dwell upon those that have not been in subsequent use or are devoid of peculiar interest.

Abigail (father of joy), strikes us as inappropriate to a woman, till we remember that the eastern nations use this expression for an abstract quality, and that the title would stand for joyfulness. Her ready courtesy to David seems to have recommended her to the earliest readers of the English Bible, for Abigail occurs in registers as early as 1573, and was for many years very frequent. Abigail Masham’s back-stair influence over Queen Anne has been generally supposed to have rendered it a soubriquet for a lady’s maid; but Mr. Bardsley, in his _Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature_, shows it to have been the name of the waiting gentlewoman in Beaumont’s Comedy, _The Scornful Ladie_, played in 1616. And in a play of Killigrew’s, some thirty years later, the term ‘Abigail’ is used for a waiting-maid, when the back-stair influence and supposed arts of Abigail Masham in the bedchamber of Queen Anne gave it a sudden fall. Abigail turned into a cant term for a lady’s maid, and thenceforth has been seldom heard even in a cottage.

Counter to his name was the course of the “Father of Peace.” He is Abishalom, or Absalom in the narrative of his life, a history that one would have thought entailed eternal discredit on the name; but it seems that in the earlier Christian times of Denmark, as well as in some other countries, a fashion prevailed, especially among the clergy, of supplementing the native name with one of Scriptural or ecclesiastical sound, and thus, about the middle of the twelfth century, Absalom was adopted by a distinguished Danish bishop as the synonym of what Professor Munch conjectures to have been his own name of Aslak (reward of the gods), though Danish tradition has contracted it into Axel. This last is a national Danish name, and it seems as if Absalom had been popularly supposed to be the Latin for Axel; since, in a Latin letter of 1443, Olaf Axelsson is turned into Olaus Absalonis.

Before quitting this prefix Ab, it seems to be the place to remark upon a name coming to us through the Tartar stock of languages, from the same source—Ab. Ata, (father, the source of Atalik, fatherlike or paternal,) is to the present day a title among the Usbeks of Bokhara. Thence that regent of the Huns, the scourge of God, who spread terror to the gates of Rome, would have been called Attalik among his own people, and thus historians have written his name of terror Attila.

In the tales of the Nibelungen, the great Hun, whom Kriemhild marries after the death of Siegfried, and at whose court the general slaughter takes place, is called Etzel in the German poem, Atli in the Northern saga, and this has generally been regarded as identifying him with Attila and fixing the date of the poem; but the monarch of the Huns is hospitable and civilized, with few features in common with the savage of Roman history; and if Attalik were a permanent regal title among the Huns, the chieftain may have been any other of the royal dynasty. His occurrence in that favourite poem, sung alike by all the Teutonic race, has rendered Atli very common from early times in the North as well as Etzel in Germany. The Lombards took it to Italy, where it turned into Eccelino, and in the person of the fierce mountain-lord, Eccelino di Romagna, became as fearful as Attila had ever been to the Romans.

The verb to fight or to rule furnished both the names of the wife of Abraham; Sarai (quarrelsome) was thus converted into Sarah (the princess). If we may judge from the example of the bride of Tobias, the daughters of Sarah were occasionally called by her name, and Zara has been, with what correctness I know not, used as an eastern name.

Sarah now and then occurs in England, as with Sara Beauchamp, (_temp._ Ed. I.,) but I suspect that she as well as Sarrota de Multon, who lived in the former reign, were alterations of some of the derivatives of the Teutonic prefix _Sig_—victory, as the masculine Saher or Serlo certainly came from Sigeheri. Sarah was never commonly used till after the Reformation, when it began to grow very popular, with its contraction Sally; and at the same time it was adopted as the equivalent for no less than three Irish names—Sadhbh (pronounced Soyv), Sorcha (bright), and Saraid (excellent). The two first are still in use; but Highlanders make a still stranger use of Sarah, which they use to translate their native More (great), perhaps in consequence of its meaning.

Elsewhere the name is occasionally used without the _h_ that our biblical translators gave it. It is not, however, very popular, though the French have used it enough to make it Sarotte; in Illyria its diminutive is Sarica; in Lithuania it is Zore.[6]

When the first glad tidings of the Child of Promise were announced, Sarah laughed for very joy and wonder, and Laughter (Yizchak) became the name of her son; known in Greek as Ἰσαὰκ, in Latin and to the European world as Isaac.

It was not revived among the early Jews; but, like Abraham, it was used by the eastern Christians, and St. Isaac, bishop of Beth Seleucia, was put to death with other Christian martyrs by Sapor II. of Persia. Another eastern Isaac was a hermit at Spoleto, in the sixth century, and Isaak has always been a favourite name in the Greek Church. Several of the family of Comnenus, both at Constantinople and Trebizond, rendered Isaak a royal name; and Isaak or Eisaak, whose feast falls on the 30th of May, is the patron of the cathedral at Petersburg. The name is frequently used in Russia and the other Greco-Slavonic countries, though not much varied.

It had not much favour in the West, though it appears once in Domesday Book, and occurs in the Cambray registers. Mr. Bardsley thinks that it, with some other Patriarchal names, became familiar through Mystery plays. But its chief popularity was after the Reformation, when it is continually to be found among the Huguenots, and it seems to have passed from them to other French families, since it is sometimes found in pedigrees, and the noted de Sacy, a grandson of the Arnauld family, was thus christened long after his forefathers had conformed to the Roman Catholic Church.

With us Izaak, as our ancestors spelt it, is just so prevalent among us as to have a recognized contraction, Ike or Ikey.

Isaac’s wife was called from _rabak_ (to bind). The word Ribkâ meant a cord with a noose, and probably was given as conveying the firmness of the marriage bond. The Septuagint and Latin gave Rebecca; the authorized version Rebekah; and both spellings are adopted by those bearing the name, who are generally called Becky.

Here too should be mentioned the faithful nurse of Rebekah, who was so lamented that the tree beneath which she was buried was known as the oak of weeping. Her name of Deborah came from a verb meaning to hum or buzz, and signified a bee, or, in after times, eloquent.

Deborah found no favour as a name except among English Puritans, and has acquired a certain amount of absurdity from various literary associations, which prevent ‘Deb.’ from being used except by the peasantry.

Of Rebekah’s two daughters-in-law, Rachel signified a ewe.

Dante made _l’antica Rachele_, with her beautiful eyes, the type of heavenly contemplation, ever gazing at the mirror that reflected heavenly glory; but her name was not popular, although the Manx princess, otherwise called Affrica, assumed it upon her marriage with Somerled, Lord of the Isles, somewhere about the eleventh century.

But Puritan days loved the sound of the word, and “that sweet saint who sat by Russell’s side” has given it a place in many an English family. Polish Jews call it Rahel; in which form it was borne by the metaphysical lady who became the wife of Varnhagen von Ense.

┌──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┐ │ English. │ German. │ Bavarian. │ │Matthias │Matthæus │Mathies │ │Mathies │Matthew │Mahe │ │Mat │Matthes │Hies │ │ │Matthis │Hiesel │ │ │ │Mathe │ ├──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Swiss. │Swedish. │ Danish. │ │Mathias │Mathias │Mathias │ │Thies │Mats │Mads │ │Thiesli │ │ │ ├──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Friesland. │ French. │ Italian. │ │Matthies │Matthieu │Matteo │ │Hise │Macé │Maffeo │ │Hisse │ │Feo │ │ │ │Mattia │ ├──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Spanish. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ │Mateo │Matfei │Mateusz │ │ │Matvej │Maciei │ │ │ │Maciek │ │ │ │Matyas │ ├──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤ │ Hungarian. │ Slovak. │ Esthonian. │ │Matyas │Matevz │Maddis │ │Mate │Tevz │Mats │ │ │Mattija │ │ └──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘

Rachel’s less beloved and less favoured sister had a name that came from _lawah_ (hanging upon, dependence, or, as in her case it is explained, weariness)—Leah, in French Lea, in Italian Lia, under which title Dante makes her the emblem of active and fruitful, as is her sister of meditative, love. It was from the same word that she named her third son Levi, when she hoped that her husband would be more closely united or dependent on her. Levi’s name was carried on into the Gospel times, and belonged to the publican who was called from the receipt of custom to become an Apostle and an Evangelist. His Aramean name was, however, that by which he calls himself in his own narrative, or more correctly speaking, by its Græcized form. The old Hebrew Mattaniah (gift of the Lord) was probably the origin of both the names that we have in the Greek Testament as Ματθαῖος and Ματθίας, Matthæus and Matthias as the Latin renders them. Some, however, make the first mean a faithful man; but it is not possible to distinguish between the various forms that have risen out of the two among persons who, probably, had no idea that the Apostle who supplied the place of Judas was a different person from the Evangelist. The Emperor Charles V. was born on St. Matthias' day, and the text “The lot fell on Matthias” was regarded as a good augury, whence Matthias came into favour in Austria and its dependencies. The name has been more popular in Germany and its dependencies. Matteo heads the Milanese Visconti, who were mostly named after the Evangelists.

Apostolic names are particularly common in Bavaria, probably from the once frequent representations of the Mystery of the Passion. In Germany, SS. Matthew and Matthias have produced the surnames Matthies, Matys, Thiess, and Thiessen, Latinized after a queer scholarly fashion into Thysius.

SECTION III.—_Jacob._

The twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah were called from the circumstances of their birth, Esau, the hairy, and Ja’akob, the latter word being derived from _âkêb_, the heel, because in the words of the Prophet “he took his brother by the heel in the womb.” This, the action of tripping up, confirmed the mother’s faith in the previous prediction that “the elder should serve the younger,” and thus that the younger should supplant the elder. “Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he hath _supplanted_, me these two times,” was accordingly the cry of Esau.

By the time of the return from Babylon we find two if not three persons mentioned as bearing the name of Akkub, and that this was meant for Jacob, is shown by its etymology; as it likewise means the supplanter, by its likeness in sound to Yacoub, the form still current among the Arabs, and by the fact that the Akkub, who in the book of Nehemiah stands up with Ezra to read the law to the people, is in the book of Esdras, written originally in Greek, called Ἰάκοβος (Jakobos).

So frequent was this Jakobos among the returned Jews that it occurs in the royal genealogy in St. Matthew’s Gospel, and was borne by two of the twelve apostles, by him called the Great, who was the first to be martyred, and by him termed the Less, who ruled the Church at Jerusalem.

It is the Great Apostle, the son of Zebedee, who is the saint, in whose honour most of those bearing this name in Europe have been christened. A belief arose that he had preached the Gospel in Spain before his martyrdom at Jerusalem; and though there was no doubt that the Holy City was the place of his death, yet it was declared that his relics were brought to Galicia in a marble ship without oar or sail, which arrived at the port of Aria Flava, since called Patron. A little farther inland arose what was at first termed in Latin the shrine of Sanctus Jacobus Apostolus. Men’s tongues quickly turned this into Sancto Jacobo Apostolo, and thence, confounding the title with the place, arrived at Santo Jaco de Compostella, or Santiago de Compostella.

A further legend arose that in the battle of Clavijo with the Moors, the spirits of the Christian Spaniards were revived by the sight of Santiago mounted on a white steed, waving a white banner, and leading them on to victory. Thenceforth Santiago became their war-cry, and the saint was installed as a champion of Christendom. Subsequently no less than three Spanish orders of knighthood were instituted in his honour, and his shrine became one of the most universal places of pilgrimage in Europe, more especially as the most marvellous fables of miracles were forged thereat. His saintly title had become so incorporated with his name that his votaries were in some perplexity where to separate them, and in Castille his votaries were christened Tiago or Diego. Even as early as the tenth century the Cid’s father was Don Diego de Bivar, and he himself Don Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, Diaz being the patronymic.

In 1207, Maria, Queen of Aragon, considering her infant son and heir to have been granted at the especial intercession of the twelve apostles, resolved to baptize him after one of their number, and impartially to decide between them by naming twelve tapers after the apostles, and calling the child after him whose candle burnt longest. Southey has comically described the Queen’s agitations until the victorious candle proved to be that of the great Saint of Galicia, whom Aragonese tongues called Jayme. The child thus christened became the glory of his kingdom, and was known as El Conquestador, leaving Jayme to be honourably borne by Kings of Aragon, Majorca, and Sicily as long as his family remained distinct. Giacopo Apostolo was the Italian version of the name, whence they made their various Giacopo, Jacopo, Giacomo, Como, Iachimo, and Iago according to their various dialects. Germany recurred to the original Jakob; but the French coming home with their own variety talked of Jiac Apostol, and named their children Jacques, or fondled them as Jacquot and Jacqueminot. The great church of St. Jacques, at Liège, spread the love of the name in Flanders as is testified by Jacob von Arteveldt, the Brewer of Ghent; and so universal throughout France was it, that Jacques Bonhomme became the nickname of the peasantry, and was fearfully commemorated in the Jacquerie, the insurrection of which English chroniclers supposed James Goodman to have been the leader. It must have been when English and French were mingled together in the camps of the Black Prince and Henry V. that Jack and Jock became confounded together. Henry V. called the wild Jacqueline of Hainault, Dame Jack. She, like his other Flemish sister-in-law, Jacquette of Luxemburg, must have been named in honour of the saint of Liège. Edward VI.’s nurse, whom Holbein drew by the soubriquet of Mother Jack, was perhaps a Jacquette; Iacolyn and Jacomyn are also found in old registers, but this feminine never took root anywhere but in France, where Jacobée also occurs. James had found its way to Scotland ere the birth of the Black Douglas, and was already a national name before it was given to the second son of Robert III., in accordance with a vow of the queen. This James was brought to the throne by the murder of his brother David, Duke of Rothsay; and thus was the first of the royal Stuarts, by whom it was invariably borne till the sixth of the line hoped to avert the destiny of his race by choosing for his sons more auspicious names. James and Jamie thus became great favourites in Scotland, and came to England with the Stuarts. The name had indeed been previously used, as by the brave Lord James Audley under Edward III., but not so frequently, and the old English form was actually Jeames. Norden dedicates his _Survey of Cornwall_ to James I. as Jeames; and Archbishop Laud so spells the word in his correspondence. In fact, Jemmy and Jim are the natural offsprings of Jeames, as the word was pronounced in the best society till the end of the last century. Then the gentry spoke according to the spelling; Jeames held his ground among the lower classes, and finally—thanks to _Jeames’s Diary_—has become one of the stock terms of conventional wit; and in modern times Jacobina and Jamesina were coined for female wear.

The Highlanders call the name Hamish; the Irish, Seumuis. In fact, its variations are almost beyond enumeration. In Italy the full name has the three varieties, Giacomo, Jacopo, Giacobbe, so no wonder the abbreviations are Coppo and Lapo.

Due honour is paid in the Greek and Slavonic Church to both the veritable apostles, but not to the mythical Santiago de Compostella, whom we have traced as the root of all the Jameses of the West.

The great Jakobos, who appeared at the Council of Nicea, and gloriously defended the city of Nisibis, handed on the apostolic name in the East; and it has almost as many Greek and Slavonian variations as Latin and Teutonic ones.

┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ Erse. │ Gaelic. │ Dutch. │ │Jacob │James │Seumuis │Hamish │Jacob │ │James │Jamie │ │ │Jaap │ │Jem │ │ │ │ │ │Jemmy │ │ │ │ │ ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤ │ French. │ German. │ Swiss. │ Italian. │ Spanish. │ │Jacob │Jakob │Jakob │Jacopo │Jacobo │ │Jacques │Jackel │Bopp │Iachimo │Santiago │ │Jacquot │Jockel} Bav. │Jock │Giakobbe │Diego │ │Jacqueminot │Gaugl } │Jogg │Coppo │Yago │ │ │ │Jagli │Lapo │Jago │ │ │ │ │Jacobello │Jayme │ ├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤ │ Portuguese. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Lett. │ │ │Jayme │Jakov │Jakob │Jekups │ │ │ │Jascha │Kuba │Jeka │ │ │ │Jaschenka │Kub │Jezis │ │ │ │ │ │Kubischu │ │ └─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘

The Russian nameday is the 30th of April, either for the sake of St. James the Less, whose eve it is, or for that of a namesake who perished in Numidia in the time of Valerian, and whose feast falls on that day. Jakov gets called Jascha and Jaschenka, and his feminine Jacovina and Zakelina. The Illyrians twist the masculine into Jakovica, and the Lithuanians into Jeka or Kubinsch.[7]

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Footnote 4:

Books consulted:—Max Müller’s _Lectures on Language_; _Proper Names of Scripture_; Smith’s _Dictionary of the Bible_.

Footnote 5:

Smith’s _Dictionary_; Michaelis, _Personen Namen_.

Footnote 6:

Books consulted:—_Proper Names of the Bible_; Le Beau’s _Histoire du Bas Empire_; O'Donovan on _Irish Proper Names_; Michaelis, _Personen Namen_.

Footnote 7:

Smith’s _Dictionary of the Bible_; Southey’s Poems; Jamieson’s _Sacred and Legendary Art_; Butler; Michaelis; Pott; Brand’s _Popular Antiquities_.

SECTION IV.—_Simeon._

Of the twelve sons of Jacob, four only have names of sufficient interest to deserve individual notice, and among these, the first requiring notice is Simeon, from _schama_, to hear.

Simeon’s name passed on to numerous Jews, and was very common in the Gospel times, no less than five personages being so called, namely, the aged man in the Temple, the son of Jonas, the other apostle called the Zealot or the Canaanite, and the leper, besides the tanner of Joppa, and the magician whose attempt to purchase spiritual gifts has given the title of simony to sins of the same nature.

By this time, however, the Hebrew Simeon had been confounded with the Greek Σῖμων (Simon), snub-nosed. St. James, in his discourse at Jerusalem, called St. Peter ‘Simeon,’ and it would thus seem likely that this was used as their true national name, and that Simon was a Græcism used in intercourse with strangers, or in writing.

The anchorite who took that strangest freak of fanaticism, the perching himself for life upon a column, is called both Simeon and Simon Stylites, but the latter form has generally been the prevalent one, and has belonged to numerous saints in both the Eastern and Western Church. The Greek Church has both St. Seeméön on the 3rd of February, and St. Ssimon on the 10th of May, and the Russian contractions are Ssemen and Ssenka. The West, too, had sundry Simons of its own, besides those common to all Christendom. We had a monastic St. Simon Stock, and though the Christian name is now uncommon, it has left us many varieties of surnames, as Simmonds, Simkins, Simpson, Simcoe, Sykes, etc., the spelling but slightly varied. It was more used among the French peasantry, and acquired the feminine Simonette. The Italian Simone was not unfrequent, and has made the surname Simoncelli; the Portuguese had Sima; the Spaniards, Ximon; and the Slavonians have the odd varieties of the Polish Szymon, the Illyrian Simej, the Lusatian Schymanz.

It is the same word Schama that named the first of the prophets of Israel. “Asked of God” is the import of Samuel, a name so endeared by the beautiful history of the call to the child in the temple, that it could not be quite forgotten. A Samuel, native of Palestine, who perished in the persecution of Maximian, obtained a martyr’s place in the calendar, and his name has been a favourite in the Eastern Church, as Samuil, Samoilo, in Russia; Schombel in Lusatia; Zomelis in Lithuania. The reading of the Holy Scriptures was, however, no doubt, the cause of its use here and in Switzerland, since we scarcely find it before the Reformation, though now Samuel is common in Switzerland, and Sam here.[8]

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Footnote 8:

_Proper Names of the Bible_; Butler; Lower’s _English Surnames_; Michaelis; Piot.

SECTION V.—_Judah._

In her exultation at having borne so many promising sons, Leah called her fourth Jehudah (he will be praised); meaning brought forward by her husband Jacob when, in his death-bed blessing of his sons, he exclaimed, “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise.”

Thus, too, it has been with the individual name of Judah. Unused before the captivity, it was revived again after it, and carried to the highest fame and popularity by the brave Maccabee, who newly founded Judea and restored it, for a time, to freedom and honour. His surname is by some derived from a word meaning the Hammerer, by others from Makkabi, formed by initial letters of the motto on his standard, “Who among the gods is like unto Thee, O Lord?” Judas Maccabeus, early as was his death, and imperfect as was the deliverance of his country when he was slain, was one of the chief heroes of the world, and occupied a far larger space in the imagination of our mediæval ancestors than he does in ours. Not only were the books of Maccabees considered as of equal authority with the canonical Scriptures, but, before 1240, a French metrical romance had recounted his exploits, and by Chaucer’s time Judas Maccabeus was ranked among the nine worthies—the subject of many a ballad and chap-book.

But his name has never occurred! Frequent, indeed, it was among his own countrymen after his time, but of them was that man who rendered it for ever accursed.

Another apostle bore the same name, but this did not suffice to redeem it, though altered into Jude to mark the distinction. The Saint had, however, two Aramean names, Lebbæus, supposed to mean hearty, or else from the town of Lebba, and Thaddæus, which is satisfactorily explained as an Aramean form of the same word Praise, Græcized and Latinized of course before it came to us.

It is not, however, popular. Italy has indeed used it a good deal as Taddeo, and Spain knows it as Tadeo; but though Ireland swarms with Thadys, who write themselves Thaddeus, this is only as a supposed English version of their ancient Erse, Tadhg (a poet). The Slavonic nations use it more than the West; it is a favourite Polish name, and the Russians call it Phaddéi; and the Illyrians, Tadia. No name has been so altered as Judah; it is Hodaiah after the captivity, and Abiud, or rather Ab-jud, in St. Luke’s genealogy.

The feminine form of the name, Jehudith, or Judith, belonged primarily to the Hittite wife of Esau, who was a grief of heart to Rebekah, but its fame is owing to the heroine of Bethulia, whose name is, however, said rather to mean a Jewess than to be exactly the feminine of Judah. Indeed some commentators, bewildered by the difficulties of chronology, have supposed the history to be a mere allegory in which she represents the Jewish nation. However, on the uncritical mind of the eighth or ninth century, her story made a deep impression, and a poem was in circulation in Europe recording her adventurous deed, and mentioning among the treasures of Holofernes' tent a mosquito net, whence the learned argue that the narrative must have been derived from some eastern source independent of the Apocryphal book.

At any rate, hers was the first name not belonging to their own language that was borne by Teutonic ladies, and long preceded that of any saint. Perhaps it was supposed to be the equivalent of the German Juthe from Ganthe, war; at any rate Juditha, Jutha, or Jutta was in high favour at the court of the Karling Kaisers, and came to England with the step-mother, who gave the first impulse to our great Alfred’s love of learning. Her subsequent marriage took it to Flanders, and we had it back again with the niece of William the Conqueror, the wicked wife of Waltheof, and afterwards of Simon de St. Lis. Her uncle cites her as a witness to a charter by the familiar abbreviation of Jugge, which was long used as the regular contraction, though Judy has since become more usual, and is exceedingly common in Ireland.

Even French families gave their daughters the name of Judith, which belonged to the gentle Comtesse de Bonneval. The Breton form is Juzeth; and the Swiss ruthlessly turn it into Dith, but across the Alps it comes forth more gracefully as Giuditta; and the Poles make it Jitka; the Hungarians, Juczi or Jutka.

On the authority of Eusebius we venture to add a third to those who bore the name of Judah in the apostolic college, namely, him whom we know by the Aramaic and Greek epithets Thomas and Didymus, both meaning a twin. Tradition declares that his fellow-twin was a sister called Lysia. India is believed to have been the region of his labours and of his death; the Christians there were called after him; and when, in the sixteenth century, the Portuguese attained their object of reaching India by sea, they thought they discovered his tomb at Meliapore, transported the relics to Goa, and created San Tomàs or Tomè into their patron saint. Long ere this, however, in every part of Europe had Thomas been revived with other apostolic names, but its great prominence was derived from the murdered Archbishop Becket, or St. Thomas of Canterbury. His shrine at Canterbury was the English Compostella, visited by foreign as well as native pilgrims, and the greater proportion of churches so termed were under the invocation of the archbishop instead of the apostle, although it is only by charter or by wake-day that the dedication can be traced, since Henry VIII. did his utmost to de-canonize and destroy all memorials of the bold prelate whom he would most certainly have beheaded instead of assassinating. In Italy a martyr for ecclesiastical prerogatives was certain to be in high repute; carvings, glass, paintings, and even needlework still bear his history and figure, always denoted by the clean cutting off of his scalp above the tonsure, and Tomasso flourishes greatly as a Christian name, the Italians, as usual, abbreviating by the omission of the first syllable instead of the last, so that where we say Tom, they say Maso, and thence Masuccio, as we call one of their earliest great painters. Tomasso Agnello was the true name which, contracted into Masaniello, was the wonder of the day at Naples, and made the Spanish power there totter on its throne.

The feminine Thomassine, Tamzine, and Tammie, are comparatively recent inventions. They were frequent in the 17th century, and then went out of fashion.

┌─────────────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────────────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ │ Thomas │Thomas │Thomas │ │ Tom │Tam │Thumas │ │ _Fem._{ Thomassine│Tamlane │ │ │ { Tamzine │ │ │ ├─────────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────────┤ │ Spanish. │ Italian. │ Russian. │ │ Tomas │Tomaso │ Foma │ │ Tome │Maso │ _Fem._— Fomaida │ │ _Fem._— Tomasa │Masuccio │ │ │ │Masaccio │ │ ├─────────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────────┤ │ German. │ Polish. │ Lower Lusatian. │ │ Thoma │Tomasz │Domas │ │ _Fem._— Thomasia │ │Domask │ ├─────────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────────────────┤ │ Lithuanian. │ Hungarian. │ Finland. │ │Tamkus │Tamas │Tuomas │ │Tamoszus │ │ │ │Dummas │ │ │ └─────────────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────────────────┘

Thomas is the accepted equivalent for the Irish Tomalhaid, Tomaltach, and Toirdelvach, tall as a tower.

SECTION VI.—_Joseph._

When, after long waiting and hoping, a son was at length granted to Rachel, she called him Joseph from a word signifying an addition, because she hoped that yet another child would be added to her family.

Joseph, beloved and honoured as he was for his own beautiful character and eventful history, has perhaps at the present day the greater number of direct namesakes among the Arabs, who still are frequently called Yussuf.

Only two Josephs occur again in the Scripture before the captivity in Babylon, but afterwards they were exceedingly numerous, and in the Gospel history two remarkable characters are so named, as well as three others whom we know by the Græcized form of the name as Joses, _i. e._ a fourth brother of the royal family of James, Simon, and Jude; he who was usually called by his surname of Barnabas, and he who was also called Barsabas, whose lot was cast with that of Matthias. The Latinized form we know as the name of the historian Flavius Josephus. Legend loved to narrate that Joseph of Arimathea brought the Gospel to England, and that his staff was the Christmas-flowering thorn of Glastonbury; nay, that he carried thither the Sanegreal and the holy lance, the mystic objects of the adventures of the Round Table.

Yet, in spite of the reputation of this holy man, and of the universal reverence for ‘the just man’ of Nazareth, Joseph was scarcely used as a name in Europe till in 1621 a festival day was fixed by the pope in honour of St. Joseph, the husband of the Blessed Virgin.

Therewith an enthusiasm broke forth in Roman Catholic Europe for the name. All the world in Italy began to call itself Giuseppe or Gioseffo; or for short, Peppo and Beppo have swarmed ever since in every village.

Spain delighted in Josef or Jose, and the more devout in Jose Maria, with Pepe or Pepito for the contraction; Pepita for the Josefa, who, of course, arose at the same time, these becoming the most common of all Peninsular names.

Not to be behindhand in devotion, the Emperor Leopold christened his son Joseph, and thus recommended it to all his subjects; and, perhaps, the Tyrol is the greatest of all the strongholds of the Josephs, the name being there called by its last syllable in all endearing varieties, Sepp, Sepperl, &c.; while the Swiss, on the other side, have Sipp and Sippli. Maria Josepha was a daughter of Maria Theresa, and these two are seldom separated in Germany, Italy, or France; but as Maria forms part of the name of every Roman Catholic woman, and of most men, the second name is the one for use. Marie Josephe Rose was the Christian name of her whom we know and pity as the Empress Josephine, and to whom it is owing that France was once full of young ladies usually called Fifine or Finette; while the rougher damsels of Lucerne are content to be Boppi in familiar life.

The Slavonians use the varieties Josko and Joska; the Letts turn the name into Jaschis or Jeps. It is in fact broken into as many odd contractions as it can possibly undergo. It is Joseef or Oseep in Russia.

England having freed herself from Roman Catholic influence before this mighty crop of Josephs sprang up, merely regarded the name as one of the Scripture names chiefly used by Puritans, although Joseph Addison has given it distinction in literature; and there Joe is of uncertain origin, as it is as often the contraction of Josiah or Joshua as of Joseph. In some parts of England, Joseph and Mary are considered appropriate to twins. Josephine is with us a mere introduction from the French.

Joseph, or Joses, as he was called since, coming from Cyprus—he was one of the Hellenistic Jews—is best known to us under his surname of Barnabas, which St. Luke explains from the Aramaic as υἱος παρακλησέος (uios parakleseos), the son of comfort, a word which bears different interpretations, since comfort may be either exhortation or consolation; and it is in the latter sense that St. Chrysostom and our translators have understood the word, though there are many who prefer the other meaning.

Barnabas has not been a very common name, though, with an apostle for its origin, it could not fail to be everywhere known; but it was never royal; and the only historical character so called, Bernabo Visconti, was enough to give any name an evil odour. We make it Barnaby when we do use it, the Irish call it Barney and confuse it with Brian, and the Russians call it Varnava. One Barnabas Hutchinson, proctor of the chapter of Durham, who died in 1633, is thus commemorated in his epitaph:—

“Under this thorne tree Lies honest Barnabee.”[9]

Joseph had named his two sons Manasseh (forgetting), because he said, “God hath made me _forget_ all my toil,” and Ephraim (twofold increase). The first was early adopted by the Israelites; we find it belonging to the son of Hezekiah, and to the father of Judith, and, to our amazement, to a mediæval knight, whose friends may perhaps have brought it from the Crusades. Two early bishops of Cambrai bore the name of Manassès, and there is one among the under-tenants in Domesday Book. In Ireland, the name of Manus, a corruption of Magnus, derived from the Northmen who invented it, is turned into Manasses.

Ephraim, like other patriarchal names, lived on in Mesopotamia; and St. Ephrem of Edessa, who lived in the beginning of the fourth century, is esteemed as a doctor of the Church, and is the name-saint of numerous Russians, who keep his day on the 28th of January, though the Roman Church marks it in July.[10]

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Footnote 9:

Kitto’s _Biblical Cyclopædia_; Trollope’s _Greek Testament_; Michaelis.

Footnote 10:

_Proper Names of the Bible_; Michaelis; O'Donovan’s _Irish Names_.

SECTION VII.—_Benjamin._

When the long-desired ‘addition,’ the second son, was given to Rachel, and in the words of Jacob she “died by him when there was but a little way to come to Ephrath,” she called the infant who had cost her life Ben-oni (son of my sorrow); but this was changed by his father into Ben-Yamin (son of my right hand, _i. e._ prosperous).

In spite of Rare Ben Jonson, Benjamin is an essentially Puritan and Jewish name; such a feminine as Benjamina has even been perpetrated. Oddly enough the Bretons call Benjamin Benoni.

Benoni, “the child of sorrow,” and Ichabod, “the glory is departed,” were so frequent among the Puritans of the time of James I. that Mr. Bardsley thinks that they could not have been so much allusions to family distress as to the afflictions of the Puritan sect. Benoni occurs in the rate of six to one compared with Benjamin in the registers of the period.

Afterwards the place of Ben was taken by the Syriac Bar, the earliest instance being that of old Barzillai, the Gileadite, whose name signified the son of iron. It seems as though under the Herodean kingdom the custom was coming in that forms the first surnames, that of calling the son by his patronymic almost in preference to his own individual appellation, and thus arose some of the double titles that confuse us as to the identity of the earlier saints. Thus, the “Israelite without guile,” is first introduced as Nathanael, the same as the ancient Nethaneel, captain of the tribe of Issachar, and meaning the gift of God, being compounded of the Divine Word and nathan (a gift). Nathan was the name of the prophet who rebuked David, and of the son whose descendants seem to have taken the place of the royal line. Elnathan occurs as father to the wife of one of the kings, and Jonathan has exactly the same meaning, the gift of God. In the list of apostles, Nathanael is called by his patronymic Bartholomaios, as it stands in the Greek, and Tholomaios is referred to Talmai (furrows), which occurs in the list of the sons of Anak, and also as belonging to the King of Geshur, Absalom’s grandfather.

In the uncertainty whether it was really the apostle, Nathanael was left unused until those English took it up, by whom it was made into Nat.

The other form, though not popular, is of all nations, and from its unwieldy length has endless contractions, perhaps the larger number being German, since it is most common in that central Teutonic land.

┌────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────┐ │ English. │ German. │ Dutch. │ Swiss. │ │Bartholomew │Bartholomaus │Bartelmês │Bartleme │ │Bart │Bertel │ │Bartli │ │Bartley │Barthol │ │ │ │Bat │Mewes │ │ │ │ │Bartold │ │ │ ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤ │ Bavarian. │ French. │ Danish. │ Spanish. │ │Bartlmê │Bartholomieu │Bartholomeuis │Bartolome │ │Bartl │Bartolomée │Bartel │Bartolo │ │Wawel │Tolomieu │Bardo │ │ │Wabel │ │ │ │ │Wabm │ │ │ │ ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤ │ Portuguese. │ Italian. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ │Bartolomeu │Bartolomeo │Varfolomei │Bartlomiej │ │Bartolomeo │Bortolo │ │Bartek │ │Bortolo │ │ │ │ │Meo │ │ │ │ ├────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────┤ │ Illyrian. │ Lusatian │ Esthonian │ Lithuanian │ │Bartuo │Bartolik │Partel │Baltras │ │Barteo │Barto │Pert │Baltramejus │ │Jernij │Batram │ │ │ │Vratolomije │ │ │ │ └────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────┘

SECTION VIII.—_Job._

We must not quit the patriarchal names without mentioning that of Job. This mysterious person is stated in the margin of the Alexandrian version to have originally borne the name of Jobab, which means shouting; and a tradition of the Jews, adopted by some of the Christian fathers, makes him the same as the Jobab, prince of Edom, mentioned in the genealogy in the 33rd chapter of Genesis, a supposition according with his evident position as a great desert sheik, as well as with the early date of his history.

Job, however, as he is called throughout his book, is explained by some to mean persecuted; by others a penitent; and it is evident from a passage in the Koran that this was the way that Mahommed understood it. The tradition of his sufferings lived on among the Arabs, who have many stories about Eyub, or Ayoub, as they pronounce the name still common among them, and their nickname for the patient camel is Abi Ayub, father of Job.

Jöv, probably from their eastern connections, is a name used by the Russians, and has belonged to one of their patriarchs. Otherwise it is a very infrequent name even in England.

Job’s three daughters, Jemima, Kezia, and Kerenhappuch, are explained to mean a dove, cassia, and a horn of stibium. This latter is the paint with which eastern ladies were wont to enhance the beauty of their eyelashes, and it is curious to find this little artifice so ancient and so highly esteemed as to give the very name to the fair daughter of the restored patriarch, perhaps because her eyes were too lovely to need any such adornment. Hers has never been a popular name, only being given sometimes to follow up those of her sisters; Kezia is a good deal used in England, and belonged to a sister of Wesley, who was called Kissy; but Jemima is by far the most general of the three.

The Hebrew interpretation of Jemima makes it a day, but the Arabic word for a dove resembles it more closely, and critics, therefore, prefer to consider it as the Arab feminine version of that which the Israelites had among them as Jonah (a dove). This belonged to the prophet of Nineveh. It is not usual in Europe, but strangely enough the Lithuanians use it as Jonsazus, and the Lapps as Jonka.

What strange fancy can have made Mehetabel, the wife of one of the princes of Edom, leave her four syllables to be popular in England? Many village registers all over the country show it. Was it a remnant of the East in Cornwall, or did Puritans choose it for its meaning, God is beneficent? It was at Jarrow as early as 1578.

Tamar, a palm tree, it may here be mentioned, has continued common among eastern Christians, especially since a distinguished Armenian queen was so called. Now and then very great lovers of biblical names in England give it, and likewise Dinah (judgment).[11]

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Footnote 11:

Smith’s _Dictionary of the Bible_; Kitto’s _Biblical Cycloædia_; _Proper Names of the Bible_.

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