Joseph had named his two sons Manasseh (forgetting), because he said, “God hath made me forget all my toil,” and Ephraim (twofold increase). The first was early adopted by the Israelites; we find it belonging to the son of Hezekiah, and to the father of Judith, and, to our amazement, to a mediæval knight, whose friends may perhaps have brought it from the Crusades. Two early bishops of Cambrai bore the name of Manassès, and there is one among the under-tenants in Domesday Book. In Ireland, the name of Manus, a corruption of Magnus, derived from the Northmen who invented it, is turned into Manasses.

Ephraim, like other patriarchal names, lived on in Mesopotamia; and St. Ephrem of Edessa, who lived in the beginning of the fourth century, is esteemed as a doctor of the Church, and is the name-saint of numerous Russians, who keep his day on the 28th of January, though the Roman Church marks it in July.^[10]

Section VII.—Benjamin.

When the long-desired ‘addition,’ the second son, was given to Rachel, and in the words of Jacob she “died by him when there was but a little way to come to Ephrath,” she called the infant who had cost her life Ben-oni (son of my sorrow); but this was changed by his father into Ben-Yamin (son of my right hand, i. e. prosperous).

In spite of Rare Ben Jonson, Benjamin is an essentially Puritan and Jewish name; such a feminine as Benjamina has even been perpetrated. Oddly enough the Bretons call Benjamin Benoni.

Benoni, “the child of sorrow,” and Ichabod, “the glory is departed,” were so frequent among the Puritans of the time of James I. that Mr. Bardsley thinks that they could not have been so much allusions to family distress as to the afflictions of the Puritan sect. Benoni occurs in the rate of six to one compared with Benjamin in the registers of the period.

Afterwards the place of Ben was taken by the Syriac Bar, the earliest instance being that of old Barzillai, the Gileadite, whose name signified the son of iron. It seems as though under the Herodean kingdom the custom was coming in that forms the first surnames, that of calling the son by his patronymic almost in preference to his own individual appellation, and thus arose some of the double titles that confuse us as to the identity of the earlier saints. Thus, the “Israelite without guile,” is first introduced as Nathanael, the same as the ancient Nethaneel, captain of the tribe of Issachar, and meaning the gift of God, being compounded of the Divine Word and nathan (a gift). Nathan was the name of the prophet who rebuked David, and of the son whose descendants seem to have taken the place of the royal line. Elnathan occurs as father to the wife of one of the kings, and Jonathan has exactly the same meaning, the gift of God. In the list of apostles, Nathanael is called by his patronymic Bartholomaios, as it stands in the Greek, and Tholomaios is referred to Talmai (furrows), which occurs in the list of the sons of Anak, and also as belonging to the King of Geshur, Absalom’s grandfather.

In the uncertainty whether it was really the apostle, Nathanael was left unused until those English took it up, by whom it was made into Nat.

The other form, though not popular, is of all nations, and from its unwieldy length has endless contractions, perhaps the larger number being German, since it is most common in that central Teutonic land.

We must not quit the patriarchal names without mentioning that of Job. This mysterious person is stated in the margin of the Alexandrian version to have originally borne the name of Jobab, which means shouting; and a tradition of the Jews, adopted by some of the Christian fathers, makes him the same as the Jobab, prince of Edom, mentioned in the genealogy in the 33rd chapter of Genesis, a supposition according with his evident position as a great desert sheik, as well as with the early date of his history.

Job, however, as he is called throughout his book, is explained by some to mean persecuted; by others a penitent; and it is evident from a passage in the Koran that this was the way that Mahommed understood it. The tradition of his sufferings lived on among the Arabs, who have many stories about Eyub, or Ayoub, as they pronounce the name still common among them, and their nickname for the patient camel is Abi Ayub, father of Job.

Jöv, probably from their eastern connections, is a name used by the Russians, and has belonged to one of their patriarchs. Otherwise it is a very infrequent name even in England.

Job’s three daughters, Jemima, Kezia, and Kerenhappuch, are explained to mean a dove, cassia, and a horn of stibium. This latter is the paint with which eastern ladies were wont to enhance the beauty of their eyelashes, and it is curious to find this little artifice so ancient and so highly esteemed as to give the very name to the fair daughter of the restored patriarch, perhaps because her eyes were too lovely to need any such adornment. Hers has never been a popular name, only being given sometimes to follow up those of her sisters; Kezia is a good deal used in England, and belonged to a sister of Wesley, who was called Kissy; but Jemima is by far the most general of the three.

The Hebrew interpretation of Jemima makes it a day, but the Arabic word for a dove resembles it more closely, and critics, therefore, prefer to consider it as the Arab feminine version of that which the Israelites had among them as Jonah (a dove). This belonged to the prophet of Nineveh. It is not usual in Europe, but strangely enough the Lithuanians use it as Jonsazus, and the Lapps as Jonka.

What strange fancy can have made Mehetabel, the wife of one of the princes of Edom, leave her four syllables to be popular in England? Many village registers all over the country show it. Was it a remnant of the East in Cornwall, or did Puritans choose it for its meaning, God is beneficent? It was at Jarrow as early as 1578.

Tamar, a palm tree, it may here be mentioned, has continued common among eastern Christians, especially since a distinguished Armenian queen was so called. Now and then very great lovers of biblical names in England give it, and likewise Dinah (judgment).^[11]

Section I.—Moses and Aaron.

At the time of the Exodus, the Israelites had become a nation, and their names, though still formed from a living language, were becoming more hereditary and conventional than those of the patriarchal times.

That of Moses himself, interpreted by the Scripture as meaning drawn out of the water, belongs rather to the Egyptian than to the Hebrew language. It probably came from the Coptic mo, water, and usha, saved; though the Hebrew, mâshâh, also presents a ready derivation: the great Law-giver. It has never been forgotten in the East, where the Arabs in the desert point out Gebel Mousa, the rock of Moses, whence they say the water flowed, and Wady Mousa, the vale of Moses. Mousa is a frequent name among the Arabs to this day, and among the gallant Moors of Granada, none stands so prominently forward in the noble rivalry of Abencerrages and Zegris as does the champion Muza.

Moses was unused by the Jews while they continued a nation, but has been very common in their dispersion, and in Poland has come to be pronounced Mojzesz. The frequent Jewish surname Moss is taken from one of these continental corruptions of the name of the great Law-giver. In Ireland the name Magsheesh has been adopted by the inhabitants as an imitation of Moses; but no form of Moses is used elsewhereelsewhere, except as a direct Scripture name.

The name of Thermuthis has been found on a tombstone, given apparently in honour of Pharaoh’s daughter, whom Josephus thus denominates.

Aaron’s name is in like manner considered to be Egyptian, and the meaning is very doubtful, though it is commonly explained as a high mountain.

Aaron seems to have been assumed as a name by some of our old British Christians, or else it was accepted as an equivalent for something Keltic, for Aaron and Julius were among our very few British martyrs under Diocletian’s persecution, and a later Aaron was an abbot in Brittany; but it has never been a name in use.^[12]

The sister of Moses and Aaron, who led the songs of the Israelites when they saw their enemies dead upon the sea-shore, was the first owner of that name which was to be the most highly honoured among those of women.

Yet it is a name respecting which there is great contention. Gesenius derives it from Merî (stubbornness), with the addition of the third person plural, so as to make it mean their rebellion. Other commentators refer it to the word Marah (bitterness), and thence the bitter gum, myrrh, the same term that was applied to the brackish springs in the desert, and to which the desolate widow of Bethlehem declared her right, when she cried, “Call me not Naomi (pleasant), call me Marah (bitter).” This is on the whole the most satisfactory derivation, but in the middle ages it was explained as Myrrh of the Sea, Lady of the Sea, or Star of the Sea, the likeness to the Latin, Keltic, and Teutonic mar being probably the guide. Star of the Sea is the favourite explanation among Roman Catholics, as the loftiest and most poetical, and it is referred to in many of their hymns and other devotional compositions.

Miriam does not seem to have been repeated until after the captivity, when it took the Greek forms of Mariam and Mariamne, and became very frequent among Jewish women, probably in the expectation of the new deliverance from the bondage that galled them like that of Egypt of old. It was the name of the Asmonean princess in whom the brave Maccabean line was extinguished by Herod the Great; it belonged to three if not to four of the women of the Gospel; and we find it again marking the miserable being who is cited as having fulfilled the most terrible of all the woes denounced by Moses upon the daughters of Jerusalem.

The name of Mariam continued in the East, but was very slow in creeping into the Western Church, though not only the Blessed Virgin herself had borne it, but two very popular saints, namely, the Magdalen, and the Penitent of Egypt, whose legends were both current at a very early period.

The first Maria whom I can find of undoubted western birth was a Spanish maiden, who was martyred by the Moors at Cordova in 851. Michaelis tells us that the old Spanish name of Urraca is the same as Maria, but this can hardly be true.

It seems to have been the devotion of the Crusaders that first brought Maria into Europe, for we find the first instances about the middle of the twelfth century all at once; Maria of Antioch, a Crusader’s daughter, who married the Emperor Manuel Comnenus; her daughter, Maria Comnena, married to the Marquis of Montferrat; Marie, the daughter of Louis VII. of France, and our Eleanor of Guienne, named probably during their Crusader’s fervour; then Marie, the translator of the Breton legends for Henry III.; Marie, the nun daughter of Edward I., and at the same time Marie all over the western world.

Probably the addition of the German diminutive chen, in French on, formed the name of

Very soon had her fame travelled abroad, for in 1332 the play of Robin et Marion was performed by the students of Angers, one of them appearing as a fillette déguisée. The origin of Marionettes, puppets disguised to play the part of Maid Marion, is thus explained. They may, however, have received their name from the habit of calling small images of the Blessed Virgin Mariettes, or Marionettes. Several streets of old Paris, in which were such images, were called Rue des Mariettes, or later, Rue des Marionettes. All puppets there came to be called Mariettes and Marmousets; and two streets of Paris were down to the last century called Rue des Marmousets. Henri Etienne says: “Never did the Egyptians take such cruel vengeance for the murder of their cats, as has been wreaked in our days on those who had mutilated some Marmouset or Marionette.” Even the bauble of a licensed fool was a Marotte, from the little head at its point, and the supernatural dolls of sorcerers, in the form of toads or apes, were described as Marionettes in an account of a trial for witchcraft in 1600. The term Marmoset passed to the daintiest and most elegant of the monkey tribe, by which it is now monopolized. Marion became a common name in France, and contracted into Manon, and expanded into Marionette, as in a poem of the 13th century where Marion is thus addressed; and in Scotland, where “Maid Marion, fair as ivory bone,” likewise figured in rustic pageantry, she took a stronger hold than anywhere else, is in common life yclept Menie, and has escaped her usual fate of confusion with Marianne. With us, the Blessed Virgin’s name, having come through the French, was spelt in their fashion till the translation of the Bible made our national Mary familiar. Mary II. was the first of our queens who dropped the ie. The chief contractions and endearments are as follows:—

Our Latin Maria is a late introduction, brought in by that taste which in the last century made everything feminine end with an a.

It is only during the last three centuries that Maria has reigned supreme in Roman Catholic countries, marking the exaggerated devotion paid to the original. Indeed, the Italian proverb, answering to the needle in a bottle of hay, is “Cercar Maria in Ravenna,” so numerous are the Marias there. Even in Ireland there were few Marys till comparatively recent times; but now the Môr that in some parts of the island was translated by Sarah, is changed into Mary.

Since Marys have been thus multiplied, the attributes of the first Mary have been adopted into the Christian name, and used to distinguish their bearer. The earliest and best of these was the Italian Maria Annunciata, or Annunziata, contracted into Nunziata; and followed up in Spain by Maria Anonciada; and in France, by Marie Annonciade. Soon there followed Maria Assunta, in honour of her supposed assumption bodily into glory, but this never flourished beyond Italy, Spain, and her colonies.

France has Marie des Anges, at least as a conventual appellation; as in Spain the votaress of the merciful interceding patroness is called Maria de Mercedes; and she whose parents were mindful of the Seven Sorrows supposed to have pierced the heart of the Holy Mother, would choose for their child Maria de Dolores. There was a legend that Santiago had seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin standing on a pillar of jasper and bidding him found at Zaragoza the church thence called NuestraNuestra Señora del Pilar, whence, in Spain at least, Pilar has become a female name, as Guadalupe has likewise in honour of a miraculous image of St. Mary, preserved in the church of the mountain once covered with hermitages. Moreover, a district in Mexico, formerly called Tlaltelolco, contained a temple to a favourite goddess of the Aztec race. After the Spanish conquest, the same site became the scene of a vision of NuestraNuestra Señora, who appeared to a Christian Indian, and intimated that a church was there to be built in her honour. As a token of the reality of the vision, roses burst forth on the bare rock of the Tepeyac, and it further appeared impressed with a miraculous painting, which has been the great subject of adoration from the Mexicans ever since. Guadalupe, a free translation into Spanish of the native name of Tlaltelolco, has been ever since a favourite name with the damsels of Mexico, and is even adopted by such of the other sex as regard the shrine with special veneration. Maria del Incarnaçion is also Spanish. An English gipsy woman lately said ‘Carnation’ was her daughter’s name, and had been her grandmother’s. Was it from this source?

As queen of heaven, Maria has votaries, called in Italy Regina or Reina. The latter was frequent in early times at Florence. In France we find Reine and Reinette, and Regina is a favourite in some parts of Germany, where it has been confused with the derivatives of the old Teutonic Ragin, Council.

Since the promulgation of the new dogma, young ladies in Spain have been called Maria de la Concepcion; in Italy, Concetta. Surely the superstition of these races is recorded in their names. The custom of adding Maria to a man’s name seems to have begun in Italy about 1360, and now most individuals in Italy, and probably likewise in Spain, as well as in the more devout French families, bear the name of Maria; and the old Latin Marius and Virginius, though entirely unconnected except by the sound, have been pressed into the service, and made to do duty as Mario and Virginio in her honour.

Perhaps the Jews had in some degree adopted the Roman fashion of similar names in a family, since the sister of the Blessed Virgin bears the same as her own, and there is a great similarity between those of the sisters of Bethany, which both probably come from mara (bitter), although some deduce Martha from the Aramean mar (a lord), which we often hear as the title of Syrian bishops, as Mar Elias, &c.

Even the earliest writers on the Gospels were at a loss whether to identify the meek contemplative Mary of Bethany, by the woman that was a sinner, who is recorded as performing the same act of devotion, and with Mary Magdalen, once possessed by seven devils and afterwards first witness of the Resurrection. While inquiry was cautious, legend was bold, and threw the three into one without the slightest doubt, going on undoubtingly to narrate the vain and sinful career of Mary Magdalen, describing her luxury, her robes, and in especial her embroidered gloves and flowing hair, and all the efforts of Martha to convert her, until her final repentance. The story proceeded to relate how the whole family set out on a mission to Provence, where Martha, by holding up the cross, demolished a terrific dragon; and Mary, after having aided in converting the country, retired to a frightful desert with a skull for her only companion.

It is this legendary Magdalen, whom painters loved to portray in all her dishevelled grief.

The word itself is believed to be a mere adjective of place, meaning that she came from Magdala, which, in its turn, means a tower or castle, and is represented by the little village of Mejdel, on the lake of Tiberias, so that her proper designation would be Mary of Magdala, i. e. of the tower, probably to distinguish her from Mary of Bethany with whom she is confounded.

It is curious to observe how infinitely more popular her name has been than her sister’s, i. e. accepting the mediæval belief that they were sisters. The Marfa of Russia is of course like the English Martha, Matty, Patty, the true housewifely Martha, independent of the legend of the dragon, and has there been a royal name occurring frequently among the daughters of the earlier Tzars; and the Martha used in Ireland is only as an equivalent for the native Erse Meabhdh, Meave, or Mab, once a great Irish princess, who has since become the queen of the fairies. Martha used also to be used for Mor. But the Marthe and Marthon of the south of France, and the rarer Marta of Italy and Spain, were all from the Provençal dragon-slayer, and as to the popularity of Magdalen, the contractions in the following table will best prove it:

The penitent Mary of Egypt has had her special votaresses. Maria Egyptiaca was a princess of Oettingen in 1666.^[14]

Section II.—Elisheba, &c.

The names of the wife and son of Aaron bring us to a style of nomenclature that was very frequent among the Israelites at the period of the Exodus, and had begun even earlier. This was the habit of making the name contain a dedication to the Deity, by beginning or ending it with a word of Divine signification.

The Divine title known to man before the special revelation to Moses in the burning bush, was the Hebrew word El, in the plural Elohim, which corresponds to our term Deity or God-head. It was by a derivative from this word that Jacob called the spot where he beheld the angels, Beth El (the House of God), and again the place where he built an altar, El Elohe Israel (the God of Israel), as indeed his own name of Israel meant prevailing with God.

This termination is to be found in the names of several of his grandsons; but we will only in the present section review the class of names where it serves as a prefix.

The first of all of these is Eliezer (God of help), the name of Abraham’s steward who went to bring home Rebecca, and again of the second son of Moses. A very slight change, indicated in our version by the change of the vowels, made it Eleazar, or God will help, the name of Aaron’s eldest surviving son, the second high priest. Both continued frequent among the Jews before the captivity, and after it the distinction between them was not observed, though Eleazar was in high repute as having belonged to the venerable martyr in the Antiochian persecution, as well as to the brave Maccabee, who perished under the weight of the elephant he had stabbed.

In the Gospels, Eleazar has become Lazarus, and in this form is bestowed upon the beggar of the parable, as well as on him who was raised from the dead. It is curious to observe the countries where it has been in use. The true old form once comes to light in the earlier middle age as St. Elzéar, the Comte de St. Sabran, who became a devotee of St. Francis, and has had a scanty supply of local namesakes. The beggar’s name has been frequently adopted in Spain as Lazaro or Lazarillo; Italy has many a Lazzaro; Poland, shows Lazarz; Russia, Lasar; Illyria, Lazo and Laze.

Aaron’s wife was Elischeba, meaning God hath sworn, i. e. an appeal to his covenant. It recurred again in the priestly family in the Gospel period, and had become, in its Greek form, Ελισαβετ; in Latin, Elisabeth.

The mother of the Baptist was not canonized in the West, though, I believe, she was so in the East, for there arose her first historical namesake, the Muscovite princess Elisavetta, the daughter of Jaroslav, and the object of the romantic love of that splendid poet and sea-king, Harald Hardràda, of Norway, who sung nineteen songs of his own composition in her praise on his way to her from Constantinople, and won her hand by feats of prowess. Although she soon died, her name remained in the northern peninsula, and figures in many a popular tale and Danish ballad, as Elsebin, Lisbet, or Helsa. It was the Slavonic nations, however, who first brought it into use, and from them it crept into Germany, and thence to the Low Countries.

Elisabeth of Hainault, on her marriage with Philippe Auguste, seems to have been the first to suffer the transmutation into Isabelle, the French being the nation of all others who delighted to bring everything into conformity with their own pronunciation. The royal name thus introduced became popular among the crown vassals, and Isabelle of Angoulême, betrothed to Hugues de Lusignan, but married to King John, brought Isabel to England, whence her daughter, the wife of Friedrich II., conveyed Isabella to Germany and Sicily. Meantime the lovely character of Elisabeth of Hungary—or Erzsebet as she is called in her native country—earned saintly honours, and caused the genuine form to be extremely popular in all parts of Germany. Her namesake great-niece was, however, in Aragon turned into Isabel, and when married into Portugal, received the surname of De la Paz, because of her gentle, peace-making nature. She was canonized; and Isabel, or Ysabel, as it is now the fashion to spell it in Spain, has ever since been the chief feminine royal name in the Peninsula, and was rendered especially glorious and beloved by Isabel the Catholic.

In the French royal family it was much used during the middle ages, and sent us no fewer than two specimens, namely, the ‘She-Wolf of France,’ and the child-queen of Richard II.; but though used by the Plantagenets and their nobility, it took no hold of the English taste; and it was only across the Scottish border that Isobel or Isbel, probably learned from French allies, became popular, insomuch that its contraction, Tibbie, has been from time immemorial one of the commonest of all peasant names in the Lowlands. The wicked and selfish wife of Charles VI. of France was always called Isabeau, probably from some forgotten Bavarian contraction; but she brought her appellation into disrepute, and it has since her time become much more infrequent in France.

The fine old English ballad that makes ‘pretty Bessee’ the granddaughter of Simon de Montfort is premature in its nomenclature; for the first Bess on record is Elizabeth Woodville, whose mother, Jacquetta of Luxemburg, no doubt imported it from Flanders. Shakespeare always makes Edward IV. call her Bess; and her daughter Elizabeth of York is the lady Bessee of the curious verses recording the political courtship of Henry of Richmond. Thence came the name of Good Queen Bess, the most popular and homely of all borne by English women, so that, while in the last century a third at least of the court damsels were addressed as ‘Lady Betty,’ it so abounded in villages that the old riddle arose out of the contractions.

During the anti-Spanish alliance between England and France, Edward VI. was sponsor to a child of Henri II., who received the Tudor name of Elisabeth, but could not become the wife of Philip II., without turning into Isabel; indeed, the Italian Elisabetta Farnese—a determined personage—was the only lady who seems to have avoided this transformation.

Poetry did not improve our Queen Elizabeth by making her into Eliza, a form which, however, became so prevalent in England during the early part of the present century, that Eliza and Elizabeth are sometimes to be found in the same family. No name has so many varieties of contraction, as will be seen by the ensuing list, where, in deference to modern usage, Elizabeth is placed separately from Isabella.

Lise and Lisette are sometimes taken as contractions of Elisabeth, but they properly belong to Louise.

Scotland and Spain are the countries of Isabel; England and Germany of Elizabeth.

The noblest prophet of the kingdom of Israel was called by two Hebrew words, meaning God the Lord, a sound most like what is represented by the letters Eliyahu, the same in effect as that of the young man who reproved Job and his friends, though, in his case, the Hebrew points have led to his being called in our Bible Elihu, while we know the prophet as Elijah, the translators probably intending us to pronounce the j like an i. The Greek translators had long before formed Ἠλιας, the Elias of the New Testament.

When the Empress Helena visited Palestine, she built a church on Mount Carmel, around which arose a cluster of hermitages, and thus the great prophet and his miracles became known both to East and West.

When the Crusaders visited the Mount of Carmel frowning above Acre, and beheld the church and the hermits around it, marked the spot where the great prophet had prayed, and the brook where he slew the idolaters, no wonder they became devoted to his name, and Helie became very frequent, especially among the Normans. Helie de la Flèche was the protector of Duke Robert’s young son, William Clito; and Helie and Elie were long in use in France, as Ellis must once have been in England, to judge by the surnames it has left. Elias is still very common in the Netherlands.

The order of Carmelites claimed to have been founded by the prophet himself; but when the Latins inundated Palestine, it first came into notice, and became known all over the West. It was placed under the invocation of St. Mary, who was thus called in Italy the Madonna di Carmela or di Carmine, and, in consequence, the two names of Carmela and Carmine took root among the Italian ladies, by whom they are still used. The meaning of Carmel, as applied to the mountain, is vineyard or fruitful field.

Elisha’s name meant God of Salvation. It becomes Eliseus in the New Testament, but has been very seldom repeated; though it is possible that the frequent Ellis of the middle ages may spring from it.

Here, too, it may be best to mention the prophetic name by which the Humanity of the Messiah was revealed to Isaiah—Immanuel (God with us), Imm meaning with; an being the pronoun.

The Greeks appear to have been the first to take up this as a Christian name, and Manuel Komnenos made it known in Europe. The Italians probably caught it from them as Manovello; and the Spaniards and Portuguese were much addicted to giving it, especially after the reign of Dom Manoel, one of the best kings of the noble house of Avis. Manuelita is a feminine in use in the Peninsula. When used as a masculine, as it is occasionally in England and France, the first letter is generally changed to E.^[15]