Ancient Most Popular Names List

General Name Discussion
1

Well I’m kind of a history buff, and I was reading an archaeology article that was trying to dispute the idea that the Talpiot Tomb holds the remains of [name]Jesus[/name] and his family. They were trying to prove that although the names of [name]Jesus[/name]'s New Testament family were in the tomb, that it was likely just a coincidence since those names were all very common.

Anyway so they had a list of the most common names found on tombs from that era, which I thought was cool because it’s like an ancient most common names list. I’m assuming it’s legit, but I can’t be sure because it’s the internet, and you can never be sure, haha.

So here are the top 10 most popular male names and 4 most popular female names for Palestinian Jews. (there are more male than female names because women’s names were not usually recorded)

Males-

  1. [name]Simon[/name]/[name]Simeon[/name]
  2. [name]Joseph[/name]
  3. [name]Eleazar[/name]
  4. [name]Judah[/name]
  5. [name]John[/name]/Yohanan
  6. [name]Jesus[/name]
  7. Hananiah
  8. [name]Jonathan[/name]
  9. [name]Matthew[/name]
  10. Manaen/[name]Menahem[/name]

Females -

  1. [name]Mary[/name]/Mariamne
  2. [name]Salome[/name]
  3. Shelamzion
  4. [name]Martha[/name]

So I just thought that was kind of interesting and that I’d share it with you guys :stuck_out_tongue:

2

Thanks for posting this! I really love [name]Judah[/name] and [name]Simon[/name]. :slight_smile:

3

It’s interesting how most of these have persisted! And yet Shelamzion, Hananiah and [name]Menahem[/name] are all pretty far and away unfamiliar.

4

I’m kind of thinking that the ones like Hananiah seem so unfamilar because they’re in Hebrew. If think it would be really interesting to know what they would sound like if they were translated to an English form. Like how Yehonatan became [name]Jonathan[/name], Mattityahu became [name]Matthew[/name], ect. But I can’t find any translations for those names :confused:

5

I think Hananiah was translated into the Biblical [name]Ananias[/name]–which was used several times in the New Testament ([name]Ananias[/name] and [name]Sapphira[/name]; an [name]Ananias[/name], through God, gave [name]Paul[/name] back his sight after his conversion experience on the Road to Damascus…). Some Hebrew names just didn’t translate over, though.

6

I’ve usually seen Shelamzion spelled Shlomtzion - as transliterations go, that’s a little closer to the original in terms of pronunciation. This was the name of a Maccabean queen, also known as Shlomit or Shlomit-[name]Alexandra[/name]. Shlomit is basically a feminization of [name]Shlomo[/name] ([name]Solomon[/name] to English speakers) - so [name]Salome[/name] is actually pretty much the same name.

I don’t think there’s an English version of [name]Menahem[/name], although the Yiddish nickname for it is [name]Mendel[/name], which is often used as a first name on its own.

For what its worth, [name]Menahem[/name] is very common among Orthodox Jews, and Hananiah isn’t particularly wild either!