How popular is the baby name Hieronymus in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Hieronymus.

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Popularity of the baby name Hieronymus


Posts that mention the name Hieronymus

The last intellectual to Latinize his name?

German physicist and mathematician Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888)
Rudolf Clausius (born Rudolf Gottlieb)

German physicist and mathematician Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888) was one of the founders of the science of thermodynamics.

Another interesting thing about Rudolf Clausius? He was born Rudolf Gottlieb.

I couldn’t find a concrete explanation for the name change, but I did find this in a college physics book: “Born with the name Rudolf Gottlieb, he adopted the classical name of Clausius, which was a popular thing to do in his time.”

(Clausius is based on the Latin clausus, meaning “closed, shut off.” Some sources say Clausius is an alternate name for Janus, the ancient Roman god of beginnings and endings.)

Yes, many historical European scholars/artists did adopt Latinized names. Astronomer Tycho Brahe was born Tyge Ottesen Brahe. Artist Jheronimus (Hieronymus) Bosch was born Jeroen van Aken. Violin maker Antonius Stradivarius was born Antonio Stradivari. Map maker Gerardus Mercator was born Gerard de Cremer.

But these folks lived during the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s. It was trendy for Renaissance thinkers, who embraced Classical philosophies and attitudes, to Latinize their names. (Wikipedia has a long list of Latinized names coined during the Renaissance if you want more examples.)

Rudolf Clausius, on the other hand, lived during the 1800s. I can’t think of any other public figure who adopted a Latinized name as late as the mid-19th century.

Was Rudolf Clausius the last European intellectual to Latinize his name? Or do other outliers exist?

(At first I thought Carl Linnæus (1707-1778) might fit the bill, but his surname was the legitimate family name, coined by his father Nils before Carl was born. It’s based on the Småland dialect word “linn,” meaning “linden tree,” in reference to a stately linden tree on the family property.)

Sources:

Image: Rudolf Clausius

Names that mean “name”

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?