I love coming across personal names that refer to names in their definitions. Some examples:
- Behnam, meaning “good name” in Persian.
- Hieronymus, meaning “sacred name,” based on the Greek words hieros, “sacred,” and onoma, “name.”
- Jerome, the English form of Hieronymus.
- Jerónimo, the Spanish form of Jerome.
- Kainoa, meaning “the namesake,” based on the Hawaiian words ka, “the” (singular), and inoa, “name.”
- Kainoakupuna, “the namesake of one’s ancestor,” with kupuna meaning “ancestor.”
- N?inoa, which means “the namesakes,” based on the Hawaiian words na, “the” (plural), and inoa, “name.”
- Nergüi, meaning “no name” in Mongolian.
- Shem, meaning “name” in Hebrew. (Sem, a variant, is popular in The Netherlands right now.)
Do you know of any others?
Interesting post! My experience is that Shem, though it literally means name, commonly refers to something more along the lines of capital-N Name (aka the name of God).
Thank you for the context, JRH.