Talk:List of biblical names

Proper Names

Since there are no PROPER names starting with Y in the text consulted, it seems like this page should be omitted, as W and X were. What does somebody else think? Tbarron

I also think this page should be omitted. In English, there are no names in the Bible that begin with Y. Oh, and the fact that yarn and year begin with y is pretty irrelevant. Danny

YHWH Vera Cruz

You mean Jehovah. Regardless of what I think of English versions of Hebrew names, YHWH is not a name in English. Danny

Its still a biblical name that somebody might come looking for and they should be able to find it here in Y, and click on it to go to Jehovah. Vera Cruz

-yeah, im doing some of these out of the Wikipedia Redirects policy, for picking up hits. the different spellings are all used, and 'propriety, tbaron, is quite a subjective thing ---Sv

One should probably note what language the alternate spellings are in, if known. Vera Cruz

Propriety is indeed a subjective thing, Sv. On the other hand, the notion of a proper name is pretty well defined, and it doesn't have anything to do with propriety -- it's the name of a unique person, place, or object (as opposed to the name of a class of persons, places, or objects, like oranges and seesaws and carpenters and islands, which are not capitalized). So, for example, Yeshua is a proper name, one I didn't think of when I made my first statement above. However, the first page in this sequence states that the names in these pages were taken from a particular public domain resource -- a particular text of the Bible -- that apparently does not contain any proper names that start with Y. To be consistent, we need to either update the first page to say this listing is of all proper names from any version of the Bible (and then update all the pages in the sequence with all the variations of proper names from all versions of the Bible), or we need to be faithful to the stated source and remove the "Y" page. I can be happy with either, I'd just like the 'pedia to be consistent. What think ye? Tbarron

Not everyone... ambiguity

Re: "note that not everyone in the Bible is named." -- Does this mean that not everyone in the bible has a name (which would be a pointless comment) or that "not everyone mentioned in the Bible is listed"? Elf | Talk 21:45, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

not have a name ? Interesting concept. I've been told that "In some cultures, like Navajo, personal names as we know them don't even exist".

I think it's trying to say that, for example, Cain's wife and the wise men (Balthasar ?) and "the Pharaoh" are mentioned in the Bible, and probably each had a name, but the Bible neglects to mention their names. I'm not sure that's so pointless -- many books and plays have a "list of names" that exhaustively list every character, even if it's "man in crowd #5". Maybe someday wikipedians will build such an exhaustive list of every person in the Bible. That list would exclude names such as Ebenezer (Um, Eben-Ezer ?) since (at least in the Bible) they don't refer to people. -- DavidCary 06:39, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I tried to remove the ambiguity -- but please replace my text with a much shorter and better note. -- DavidCary 06:39, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why are there no names beginning with C(e.g. Cain)? Is it similar to the reasons already commented on for there being none beginning with Y?

In Bible but not?

When it says "Some people in the Bible aren't listed here, because their names are not in the Bible.", what on earth does it mean? If someone is in the Bible, their name is in the Bible, otherwise how would we know their name? I'm hoping this was supposed to mean something else. Unless I'm just not getting it when it's blantantly obvious, perhaps this should be rephrased or elaborated upon.

To elaborate, not everyone mentioned in the Bible is named. 68.225.240.87 09:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Veronica, perhaps? --Peter Farago 05:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Protected

List of Biblical names is currently protected from being edited to avoid blanking by a vandal. -- PFHLai 03:44, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Unprotected now. -- PFHLai 18:02, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Deletion of redirects

Discussion moved from Redirects for deletion until there is consensus on whether to delete these.

• List of Biblical names starting with A
• List of Biblical names starting with B
• List of Biblical names starting with C
• List of Biblical names starting with D
• List of Biblical names starting with E
• List of Biblical names starting with F
• List of Biblical names starting with G
• List of Biblical names starting with H
• List of Biblical names starting with I
• List of Biblical names starting with J
• List of Biblical names starting with K
• List of Biblical names starting with L
• List of Biblical names starting with M
• List of Biblical names starting with N
• List of Biblical names starting with O
• List of Biblical names starting with P
• List of Biblical names starting with Q
• List of Biblical names starting with R
• List of Biblical names starting with S
• List of Biblical names starting with T
• List of Biblical names starting with U
• List of Biblical names starting with V
• List of Biblical names starting with Y
• List of Biblical names starting with Z
• I've combined all of these stubs into one List of Biblical names article. Deletion is necessary to simplify searching (these 26 articles clutter many internal and external search results). -- Netoholic @ 03:53, 2004 Oct 13 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose as this would destroy a lot of history. There are other solutions to this problem, such as marking redirect pages as no archive. Or, even better, we could introduce an archive flag that any user can set or clear for any article. anthony (see warning) 14:36, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Concur, keep. There is a ton of history on each of these pages, and merging them all into one giant history would be Very Bad (unreadable/unusuable). Noel 22:42, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Now that I think about it, there may be a good case for getting rid of them as redirs (I have no big opinion either way), but we can still keep the history, e.g. by moving them to the Talk: space, and linking to them from Talk:List of Biblical names. What do people think of that? Noel 20:44, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I checked down through J, and nothing links to them except Wikipedia:List of lists, which is built automatically and will drop them once they are gone. Noel 20:55, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Many of these redirects have no appreciable history, so I don't think there is any harm merging their histories back under the main List of Biblical names article. Really, the discordant histories are already unusuable in the present form, being spread out as they are. The individual edits in the history are not 'very' important, since few edits have been made to these since they were originally split off in Sep 2002. Really, this can be seen a returning the edit histories "home". -- Netoholic @ 20:53, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)
  • Regrettable that the edit history doesn't make the back and forth very transparent.
    We know the one letter that must have an edit history. This one should certainly be kept. As there isn't any harm done in keeping all the redirects, I'd keep them (as last time it was listed). --- User:Docu
  • Delete, if this discussion is still alive? It's impractical to divide this article up into 26 sub-articles (a couple of which would be empty); maybe an A-M and N-Z would be best. I don't see how the histories are important if they're just "added name, added name," so there's no reason to keep these numerous redirects. --LostLeviathan 02:43, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

---

Categorization

Would perhaps a thematic categorization system work better? After all, when looking for names, I'm going to be looking for the concepts, people, and ideas the words represent, not what letter they start with. 68.225.240.87 09:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Meanings of names

The meanings of the Biblical names are unverified and in many cases unverifiable. The intent of naming Cain is explicitly stated in Genesis 4:1, and the name of Rachel is identical to the ancient Hebrew word for sheep, probably not by coincidence. But the identification of Gog with "roof" (actually, "gag" in Hebrew, a different word) is highly suspect. I'm going to delete a lot of the mistranslations. It would be far more valuable to provide an index with an instance where this character's name appears, such as "Cain - Genesis 4:1." (YechielMan) 129.98.212.69 22:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Many of the "translations" here are absolute rubbish--Gilabrand 08:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC). Where does this information come from?

I agree that the meaning of many names don't even match other wikipedia article's that describe their history or meaning. The names Cyrus and Darius are names of Persian Kings and this article fails to state that. The meaning given are not verifiable. For example, Cyrus Should be something like this: Cyrus is a name of a Persian king prophetically named in the book of Isaiah as the one who would overthrow Babylon and liberate the captive Israelites. [from http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Cyrus ]

Darius means "he possesses; rich, kingly". Cesar means "emperor", but in the article it says one cut out from a womb. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aptin (talk • contribs) 22:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

So exactly where do the meanings of these names come from? The article says there were obtained from Hitchcock's New and Complete Analysis of the Holy Bible by Roswell D. Hitchcock, New York: A. J. Johnson, 1874, c1869; but does not give the original source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.171.237.36 (talk) 16:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Vote NOT to move this list

As a researcher that uses this list dozens of times monthly, my vote is NOT to move this list. It NOW makes for easy access in Wikipedia and references well with other articles in Wikipedia. I believe if it was moved then it would be harder to access (several more steps needed to look this information up) and would not then be used as much as it is now. This I say is one of those cases to leave well enough alone so that other researches (especially laymen) can look up several words at one time with ease. My viewpoint is that (while it has definitions like a dictionary) it is closer to that of something that should be placed in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia defines encyclopedia items as: Articles are about the people, concepts, places, events, and things that their titles denote. This is the way I see "Biblical names". Below are examples of how I see these as encyclopedia items:

• Aaron, bringer of death -----> concept
• Abaddon, the destroyer -----> events
• Abagtha, father of the wine-press -------> thing
• Abana, made of stone; a building -------> thing
• Abarim, passages; passengers --------> event, types of people
• Abba, father -------> thing
• Abda, a servant; servitude -------> people, concept, event, thing
• Abdeel, a vapor; a cloud of God ---------> concept
• Abdi, my servant ---------> people, things
• Abdiel, servant of God -------> concept, event
• Abdon, servant; cloud of judgment -------> concept
• Abednego, servant of light; shining -------> concept, event

So from the viewpoint of a person that uses this list considerably each month, please do not move it. Thanks! --Doug ^talk 13:51, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

2007-02-26 Automated pywikipediabot message

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 16:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

I have reverted eight entries which were certainly vandalism; I am not sure that there may not be earlier vandalism. Perhaps someone qualified should check through the whole article. JohnCD 14:45, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hazelelponi

This article translates the name as "sorrow of countenance," while Hazelelponi translates it as "shade coming upon me." I have no idea which is correct; I'm just pointing out the inconsistency. Wrelwser43 (talk) 01:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Strange!

Arriving here from List of minor Biblical figures, and I find that there is no discussion at all about the authority for the list. It seems pretty simple to say that the KJV is the oldest exhaustively text-searched English Bible text, and that Strong's can be used as the primary reliable authority. I will do a sample for the letter Z to see what differences show up with the use of Hitchcock that the article has relied on. If the sample looks good, we should probably just say this is the list of "all capitalized words in the KJV" (with exceptions, probably). Other variant spellings would be best handled by determining the status of other exhaustive concordances, and the likelihood of reproducing large parts of their content herein, though reformatted. There is also the issue of Hebrew (Aramaic, Greek) vs. English as the base name determinant, but that is another question. JJB 06:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC) Looks good. Strong's has 152 name entries for Z, plus 1 word capitalized in title (Zain), 4 possessives, 1 cross-reference, 3 lowercase words (zeal/ous/ly), total 161 entries. I made total 66 line-edits: added 38, repunctuated 15, referenced 6 (Zareth-shahar, Zavan, Zephon, Zeri, Ziphah, Zobebah), respelled 4 (Zacheus/Zacchaeus, Zamzummim/Zamzummims, Zeredah/Zereda, Zuzim/Zuzims), deleted 3 (Zahara, Zebulon (run-on of Zebulun), Zimzi). This suggests that Strong's wholly comprehends Hitchcock except for transcription errors and unsourced adds, and that the article can be grown into Strong's compliance, after which the use of other sources can be combined in, unless somebody knows of a legitimate copyright concern that significantly affects the re-presentation of its material. Note that using this method, V would remain as is for now, but X and Y would be totally deleted, as all these names are extra variants. This article should not be a list of all KJV names plus a few variants thrown in because they are the favorites of certain editors (or the Sacred Name movement); it should be very easy for this list to be canonical, even with the spellings of the tetragrammaton! JJB 08:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Which Bible?

Appears from brief examination to be Protestant Bible, but doesn't actually say. Peter jackson (talk) 10:43, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Indicating Greek/Hebrew

When I have time, I plan to add a (G) or (H) tag to each entry to indicate whether it originates from Greek or Hebrew (or occasionally or other languages potentially). -68.175.44.30 (talk) 01:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Etymologies

The etymologies presented here appear to be completely unreliable, and bear no relation to those given on our main article pages.

Some examples:

• Capernaum: "the field of repentance; city of comfort". Our article says Hebrew: כְּפַר נַחוּם‎, Kfar Nahum, "Nahum's village"
• Carmel: "circumcised lamb; harvest; full of ears of corn". Our article says "God's vineyard"; the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia says "the garden" or "garden land".
• Dalmatia: "deceitful lamps; vain brightness". Our article says "derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Dalmatae", which in turn says "derives from the leading city of the alliance Delmium/Dalmion..." perhaps related to the medieval Albanian word "delmer" meaning "shepherd".
• Damascus: "a sack full of blood; the similitude of burning". Our article says "uncertain, suspected to be pre-Semitic".
• Darius: "kind man". Our article says "a short form of the original Old Persian: 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 (Dārayavauš) ... 'holding firm the good'.
• Dedan: "their breasts; friendship; a judge". Our article says "low ground".
• Delilah: "languid". Our article says "[One who] weakened or uprooted or impoverished" from the root dal meaning "weak or poor")
• Emmaus: "people despised or obscure". Our article says "Hebrew: חמת‎ Hammat, meaning 'warm spring'"

Of course, some of the etymologies are straightforward and non-controversial. But there is far too much on this list which is very bizarre or just plain wrong. It needs careful checking; or deletion.

Strong's concordance, online via Blue Letter Bible, paired there with Gesenius's lexicon, is useful for getting a scholarly view, at least as it stood at the end of the nineteenth century. Put the name into the search box and then click the Lexi/Conc tab when the results come up. Jheald (talk) 09:25, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Poorly sourced, deceptive article

Per everyone above, this list is very poor. It says that "most" of the meanings given here are from one 19th century source, but doesn't indicate which ones. It says itself that meanings have been given, even when there is no agreed-upon meaning. Again, these are not indicated. The meanings given are often extremely suspect, but the list is so long and lacking in proper sourcing that it would be easier to strip every meaning out and start again.

If someone here has access to the book used to source these meanings, stripping the list to match those in the book and rewriting the lede would probably be the way to go: we could make this an article that only claims to list what the book says. We could put this into a table, and add the meanings given by other sources in another column.

If nobody actually has access to that book, then stripping the meanings or even out-and-out deletion seem the best options. I will be pursuing these options if the others don't pan out. 86.177.125.182 (talk) 18:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The book can be read online here, but I cannot find such a list within it. Perhaps others will have more luck. It occurs to me that even if the list were checked for conformance to the source, and the article renamed and rewritten to reflect this, that would be more a job for Wikisource than Wikipedia. As such, I will edit the article to reflect the name: I will remove the dodgy definitions and rewrite the lede. As such, the article can still serve to aid navigation without leading people astray. 86.177.125.182 (talk) 18:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Have cut lede down, and removed meanings from names in A to B. Also removed some entries that were not names, or were not from the Bible: presumably these last were capitalised words in the 19th century book. Much more to do.

When this is finished, will have to decide whether to leave entries without meanings, or add well sourced meanings. Would probably be more worthwhile splitting lists into people and places. 86.177.125.182 (talk) 19:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Note that we have a separate List of minor Biblical figures for people who are mentioned, but with insufficient information to merit articles. Well-sourced meanings of names could be included there also. bd2412 T 19:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Wait, I see we have

1. List of major Biblical figures
2. List of minor Biblical figures
3. List of Biblical places

Do we actually need this list at all? 86.177.125.182 (talk) 19:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

To the extent that it is a collocation of all proper nouns in the Bible, I think it may have some utility. I agree that meanings should not be included unless they can be attested, but I would also point out that our current List of minor Biblical figures is woefully incomplete. bd2412 T 19:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

All righty roo. I'll keep removing the current meanings. Maybe later we can use it to populate the other lists, and then find good, sourced meanings to add to those? 86.177.125.182 (talk) 19:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC) Oh, and thanks for your help so far :) 86.177.125.182 (talk) 19:58, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be the best course. We should also style this article as more of an index, and remove the line breaks between names under a given letter (I can do that later through a quick automated process). bd2412 T 20:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Reverted article back to list with definitions - reference: Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary 1869.--LordGorval (talk) 12:04, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

In the course of "reverting" the article you have also broken several disambiguation repairs. Please kindly restore these repairs. bd2412 T 14:45, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Reverted back to version of 01:33, 12 May 2010. I do not see any disambiguation fixes after this time and date. --LordGorval (talk) 14:55, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The Bible Study Tools says:

As part of the Bible Study Tools Study Library, Hitchcock's Bible Names is linked to Torrey's New Topical Textbook, Baker's Evangelical Dictionary, Easton's Bible Dictionary, Smith's Bible Dictionary, and Nave's Topical Bible. Anytime a reference can be found in any of the other online tools a hyperlinked symbol will be placed next to the reference, allowing you to immediately jump to that resource and expand your study capabilities.

The following table shows the symbol and its corresponding resource:

• [B] - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary
• [E] - Easton's Bible Dictionary
• [H] - Hitchcock's Bible Names
• [N] - Nave's Topical Bible
• [S] - Smith's Bible Dictionary
• [T] - Torrey's New Topical Textbook

Removing deletion notice based on the fact that these definitions can be found in several sources.--LordGorval (talk) 15:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

So, you're saying this entire article should just be reproducing a publically available source? That's what Wikisource is for. Even if we were to do that, we would have to rename this article, since it simply reproduces a single 19th century source: rather than calling it List of Biblical names we would have to call it List of definitions of Biblical names given in Hitchcock's Bible Names. That that particular website links you to other sources as well, doesn't change that they have simply listed the definitions (some extremely dodgy) given in a single 19th century source. The meanings listed here only and exclusively come from Hitchcock's Bible Names. Many do not match the derivations of the names given in other places, in more modern works.

These definitions have not been sourced from anywhere other than that one 19th century work, and they are not properly sourced to it. 86.179.147.79 (talk) 20:35, 15 May 2010 (UTC)