What Does the Bible Say About…Names?
Choosing a name apparently used to be more important than now. Most people today dont know the origin of names, other than perhaps their own. The Bible says nothing about choosing a name, other than explaining how some people were named. It doesnt seem to be as important what you name a person as how you raise that person. Sometimes people in the Bible were named because of a particular occurrence. For example, in Genesis 29 and 30, the sons of Jacob were named because of ideas or incidents. My favorite passage about names is 1 Samuel 25:25. It is about a man named Nabal, which means fool. His wife says, As his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him. There are some names that fall out of favor because of those who had that name. In the United States the name Benedict is no longer popular because of its association with the famous traitor, Benedict Arnold. Almost nobody today is called Judas because of the betrayer of Jesus, although you may find some men named Jude
