Names:

Questionable and Problematic

We know that a question like this brings many questions to your mind, your heart, and your ears! Let’s put this in the form of a question:

Question

I seem to have a strange name but I would like to know if God has anything to say about this. Does He have a say in what I am called? What about my name?

Answer

I am sorry to say this, but the question that you ask can be answered as a Yes or a No. God does have something to say about this but it may not be something that we want to hear. There are various ways of dealing with this issue.

We might ask the question, what is a name? We read that a name is “a word or words by which an entity is designated and distinguished from others” (The American Heritage College Dictionary). The term may also be defined as “a word or phrase by which a person or thing is designated” (Random House Webster’s College Dictionary). There is nothing surprising about these meanings.

As for names, we may be referring to a baby, for they also must have a name—generally given by society, by the ancestors, or by the parents. When we turn to Scripture we find nothing definite about choosing a name although there are many principles that may apply.

A few hundred years ago we find these as common names for boys and girls:

Amity

Charity

Christian

Comfort

Constant

Ernest

Faith

Grace

Haven

Honor

Hopestill

Justice

Obedience

Promise

Purity https

Remember

Temperance

True

Verity

A few more:

 

Liberty

Modesty

Seraphina

Silence

 

As we can see, many of these names refer to traits or characteristics, found in a woman but also in a man. Or perhaps we should say a baby.

These have the benefit of expressing certain characteristics that the Christian should have, but we must admit that our names need not have these meanings. When we think of Biblical names for women, we think of Eve, Rebecca, Rachel, Mary, Martha, Joan (for grace), Tabitha, and Dorcas. Of course, there are many, many mentioned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. As for male names, we suspect that the number might be so high that it would be difficult to count.

Some might refer to physical characteristics such as color, size, defects, and sex. Examples might be Laban and Libni (white) Zohar (reddish), Haruz (yellow), Edom (red), Phinehas (bronze-colored), Hakkatan (small one), Korah and Kareah (baldy), and others.

Then there were the circumstances of the birth, such as the time of birth, the place of birth, the order of birth, and the events at birth. Then there would be the qualities of the person. Some would be nature names. For example, an animal, a plant, and meterological. For instance, Deborah means bee, Rachel means ewe, Caleb means dog, Huldah means weasel, Achbor means mounse, Shaphan means rock badger, Johan means dove, and Tola means worm. There would also be plant names, such as  Tamar (date palm tree), Hadassah (myrtle), Elon (oak), Zethan (olive), and rimmon momegranate.

We also find names related to objects. For example, Peninnah (corals), Rebecca (cord for tying sheep), Rizpah (pavement), Bakbuk (pitcher) and Achsah (anklet). There would be others, such as Barak (lightning), Samson (little son), and Nogah (sun-rise).

This gives an idea of what we find by way of names in Scripture. Of course, there would be many more and the reference works would give them.

Today, we find many names that are rather bizarre or strange. These peculiar names are found all around us and we must note them. Some depend on the nation that one comes from. Others may sound weird because we have never heard of them before. Sadly, today we find that parents give names to their sons and daughters because of the sound or because they want the child to be “different” or out of the sinful attitude of pride. They would like their child to have a name that is out of the ordinary and memorable in some way. And others want a name that hasn’t been chosen by anyone else. In doing this, they seemingly overlook the fact that pride is a chief sin of the Bible.

Further, a compassionate attitude toward their child will cause them to avoid these bizarre designations. We would hope that a father or mother would not only want their child to be known by a common name, but also one that has class or perhaps denotes a characteristic that they hope to see in their child as he or she grows. The parent (or whoever gives the child a name) hopefully would want him or her to find in the name something that is easily-pronounced, has a good meaning, sounds good, perhaps is based on the Bible, or a worthy person in history.

We think that a parent would not want to name their baby Hitler, or Mussolini, or a term that has a bad or questionable meaning in another language. There are many more positive names than ones that have a negative meaning. We think that we should also avoid names that have a certain meaning in the language where we are located. We know that certain names that should be avoided might be in another language. We think of Jesus, Christ, God, Lord, Savior, and the like. Even if this is common in a certain language, we think that it should be avoided, especially in the Engliah language.

We don’t refer to merely a person in America for there are many other countries in the world. We think that there may be about 195 of them, but sometimes in some of these nations there would be many different languages. There are over 5,000 of these languages in the world. It may be that a name means something in one of these nations. However, here we are referring to America, with over 300 million inhabitants.

Sadly, we are aware that there are many ways of speaking and the names that have been chosen may not be of the highest motives. Yes, we could wish that girls may have a name that we find in the past, such as Rebecca, Rachel, Mary, Martha, Susan, Deborah, Rosemary, Mary Ann, or the like. Others would be Olivia, Emma, Charlotte, Amelia, Sophia, Evelyn, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Grace, Violette, and Victoria. And we would wish that men might have names that were more common at one time but are not as common today, such as: William, Thomas, Gregory, Richard, Stanley, Philip, David, Donald, Michael, James, Robert, and so forth. Perhaps others might be Noah, Oliver, Benjamin, Lucas, Luke, Theodore, Alexander, Daniel, Michael, Mason, Logan, Jacob, and Josep. Further, we think of Barbara, Margaret, Sally,  and Donna for women.

Actually, I don’t know the meaning of many of these designations.

Probably we could also say that names would be well to have a character trait attached to them, as in the list that we gave earlier. For example, we may think of several of these: Charity, Comfort, Ernest, Faith, Grace, Haven, Hope, Justice, Obedience, Promise, Purity, Temperance, True, Liberty, or Modesty. My own name (Richard) supposedly means Protector or Strong Protector, and this means much.

In our survey of names above, we don’t at all mean that we have covered all of them. By no means. We are merely human and perhaps we have left dozens untouched or unlisted. But we must say that many of the strange, bizarre, hardly-pronounceable names should not be used. Some of the principles that we have seen above seem to apply. We refer to such things as pride, strangeness, and certain sins, and the like. Some are definitely not “Christian” or “godly” or “righteous” in nature. Some of them seem to not make much sense. In other words, they are non-sensical in nature.

In the past, I did look up many names that are common and wrote the meaning on cards. In this way, I could refer to their names and the meanings for my own benefit and that of the name-holders. It may be our imagination, but perhaps some of these bizarre names come from certain cultures much more than others. In this case, we need to avoid those names for more than one reason. Yet, in our observations here we must avoid the belief that certain names are more “godly” and should be used. We know that there is some legitimacy in unusual names. As we read the Bible and see the practice of naming that we find there, we realize that many of these names would be considered strange and peculiar today to our ears.

Let us have a positive attitude when we choose a name of our newborn. If it is too late and a strange name has been found and placed on a child, it is not too late. We can always change the name and give a more appropriate one. Yes, it will create some problem, but it is better to have a problem at this juncture than cause a child to grow up with an unwanted and bizarre designation.  We do think that a parent, a guardian, or another should not only be ashamed but should repent of their irresponsible action. We think that it is neither wise nor responsible for a name-giver to “saddle” a child with this sort of bizarre designation for life!

We would like to offer a few suggestions as you think through this matter of names and choose one for your baby. You will notice that these are very practical in nature:

1. Choose a name that is easy to spell. It is better to keep people from needing to ask about this and also to help them as they want to remember the name of your child.
2. Choose a name that is easy to pronounce. We think that you will agree that some or many of the names chosen today are really difficult to say.
3. Choose a name that is easy to say. There are thousands of names given today and many of them are bizarre and strange. But choose one that can be said easily.
4. Choose a name that is from the Bible. We know that this is not always easy, but there are hundreds to choose from. Of course, even Biblical names may not be feasible but it is a consideration.
5. Choose a name for your child that has a character meaning. We have discussed this briefly above.
6. Don’t choose a name just because it is popular at the time. This age will pass and ten or forty years from now your child will be “saddled” with this strange name.
7. Don’t choose a name for your son or daughter that is bizarre or strange. People don’t need to know this. And, if you seek to follow Jesus, surely you want to help people and not hinder them.
8. Don’t choose a bizarre spelling or pronunciation for your baby.
9. If you have been given a bizarre name, be willing to change it. And this, of course, would be for the benefit of God and others.
10. If you have been from another culture or country, stay with a regular and normal name. Not a strange name, either here but strange for the country in which you live.

Note: We know that an article like this can bring negative feelings for our name may be important to us. Millions do not like their name but many others do.  We realize that this article was not mean to be definitive and we know that in the world there are thousands of different names rather than the ones found in Western nations. Please keep all of this in mind as you evaluate what we have presented.

 

https://nameberry.com/userlist/view/29036/all

The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, “Names, Proper” and “Names.”

The Internet.