Section III.—Names from Christos.

The Greek verb χρίω (chrio), to touch, rub, or anoint, formed the term Χριστός, which translated the old Hebrew prophetic Messiah (the Anointed), and thence became the title of the Saviour, the very touch-stone of faith.

Therefore it was that at Antioch the disciples came to be called Χρίστιανοι (Christianoi), a Greek word with a Latin termination, the title that they accepted as their highest glory, and which has ever since been the universal and precious designation of a believer. The first person who is known to have been baptized after this title, was St. Christina, a Roman virgin of patrician birth, who was martyred in 295. Her marvellous legend declares that she was thrown into lake Bolsena, with a mill-stone round her neck, but that she floated to the surface, supported by angels, and that she was at last shot to death with arrows. She is therefore, of course, patroness of Bolsena and of the Venetian States, where Cristina is frequent; and her fame travelled to Greece, Bohemia, and Hungary, from which last place the Atheling family brought it to England and Scotland in the person of Christina, Abbess of Romsey. Christian, like the other Greek names of this importation, took deep root in Scotland, where Kirstin is its abbreviation among the peasantry; and Christina, or Stine, and Tine, is common in Germany. John Bunyan’s Christiana, as the feminine of his allegorical Christian, has made this form the most common in England. Christine, either through Germany or Scotland, found its way to Scandinavia, where the contraction is Kirste, or Kirstine. Being vigorous name-makers at the time of their conversion, the Northmen were not content to leave this as a mere lady’s name inherited from the saint, but invented for themselves a masculine Christian, or Christiern as they call it in Denmark, which has belonged to many a sovereign in that kingdom, where it is especially national, and contracts into Kirsten.

Christabel was already a name before Coleridge’s time. It is to be found in Cornwall, in 1727, and in the North of England. It occurs at Crayke, in Yorkshire, between 1538 and 1652.

From the same holy title was derived that of Χριστοφόρος (Christ-bearer), claimed by many an early Christian as an expression of his membership, as St. Ignatius on his trial spoke of himself as Θεοφορος. To this title was attached the beautiful allegory of the giant ever in search of the strongest master, whom he found at last in the little child that he bore on his shoulders over the river. Simplicity soon turned the parable into credited fact, and St. Christopher became the object of the most eager veneration, especially as there had been a real martyr so called, and mentioned in the Mozarabic service-book. He was put to death in Lycia, and his relics were supposed to have been at first at Toledo and afterwards at St. Denis. The sight of St. Christopher’s image was thought to be a protection from sickness, earthquake, fire, or flood, for the rest of the day, and it was therefore carved out and painted in huge proportions outside churches and houses, especially in Italy, Spain, and Germany. The cumbrous length is cut down in England into Kit, Kester, and Chris. The modern Greeks shorten Christophoros into Christachi. The two feminine are the German Christophine and English Christophera.

Christopher was once far more common in England than it is at present. In the list of voters at Durham in the year 1500, there were thirteen Christophers, and in 1813 there were as many as ten. The Germans have also Christophilon, meaning, loved by Christ.^[41]

Section IV.—Sophia.

Perhaps we ought to consider Sophia (Σοφία) as one of the words most closely connected with divine attributes, since its use as a name was owing to the dedication of that most gorgeous of Christian temples by which Justinian declared that he had surpassed Solomon. It was called, and it has borne the title through its four hundred years of bondage to Islam, Sta. Sophia (the holy wisdom of God), that figurative wisdom whom Christians considered the Book of Proverbs to point out as the Word of God. Moreover, the words of the ‘Preacher,’ in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, “Wisdom (Σοφία) is the mother of fair Love and Hope and holy Fear,” suggested an allegory of a holy woman with three daughters so called, and thus, in compliment, no doubt, to the glorious newly-built church, the niece of Justinian’s empress, afterwards wife to his nephew and successor, was called Sophia, a name which thenceforward became the fashion among the purple-born daughters, and spread from them among the Slavonian nations, who regarded Constantinople as the centre of civilization.

Through these Slavonians Sophia spread to Germany. A Hungarian princess was so called in 999; another, the daughter of King Geysa, married Magnus of Saxony, in 1074, and Saxony scattered its Sophias in the next centuries all over the neighbouring states and into Denmark, where it has always been a royal name. Very nearly had the Electress Sophia brought it to our throne, and though the unhappy Sophia Dorothea of Zelle never took her place in the English Court, her grand-daughters made it one of the most fashionable ladies' names under the House of Hanover; and though its reign has passed with the taste for ornamental nomenclature, yet the soft and easy sound of Sophy still makes her hold her own.

Section V.—Petros.

Great is the controversy that hangs on the form of Πέτρος, the surname divinely bestowed upon the faithful disciple Simon Barjona, when he made his great confession of faith in the Godhead and Messiahship of his Master.

“Thou art Petros (a stone), and on this Petra (a rock) I will build my Church,” are the words.

The apostle was sometimes called in his own lifetime by the Hebrew or Syriac equivalent Κηφᾶς, or Cephas; but Petros, or Petrus, being both Greek and Latin words, he went down to posterity thus distinguished. Many a Pietro was called after him in Italy, to be cut down into Piero or Pier, and amplified into Pietruccio, or Petruccio and Petraccio. The devout Spaniards caught up the name, and had many a Pedro, nay, three Pedros at once were reigning at a time in three Peninsular kingdoms, and the frequency of Perez as a surname shows how full Spain is of the sons of Pedro. France had many a Pierre, Pierrot, or, in Brittany, Perronnik. Perrault, a common surname, may be a derivation from it, as is St. Pierre, one of the territorial designations. Before the Revolution, La Pierre and La France were the unvarying designations of the two lackeys that every family of any pretension always kept in those days of display.

England had Peter, which Peter-pence, perhaps, hindered from being a favourite, and borrowed from the French, Piers and Pierce. Feories is the Irish version of Pierce. Pedder or Peer are both much used in the North, and Peter in Germany; while the great Muscovite made Petr notable in his empire. The Irish, regardless of the true history of Patricius, want to make St. Patrick a namesake of St. Peter, and therefore the Paddys own not only their national apostle, but the prince of apostles, for their patrons. The feminines of Peter are Petronilla, said to have been his daughter, and whence has come Petronilla in Spanish, Petronille shortened into Nille in Norway, Pernel or Parnel, once exceeding common, though now forgotten, in England; but other female names have been made direct from that of the saint, Peronetta in Italy, Perretta in France, and even Petrina in Scotland and Sweden.

Rejoicing that “life and immortality had been brought to light” quickly broke out in the very names given to Christians at their baptism, and full of import were the appellations invented in these early ages of the Church, to express the joyful hope of everlasting life.

Even in the Sanscrit, a-mrita expresses the elixir of life, “the amreeta cup of immortality,” which terminates the woes of Kailyal in the Curse of Kehama, and according to Hindoo myth was produced by the celebrated churning of the ocean. The name is traced to a privative and mri, a word to be met with again in mors, murder, &c., and the notion of a water of life continued to pervade all the Indo-European races. Among the Greeks this life-giving elixir was ἀμβροσία (ambrosia), immediately derived from ἄμβροτος (immortal), a word from the same source. In various legends this ambrosia served to express the human craving for heavenly and immortal food, until at length, in later times, ambrosia came to be regarded as the substantial meat of the gods, as nectar was their drink.

It was reserved for Christianity to proclaim the true ambrosia, the veritable food of Paradise, and thus it was that Ambrosios became a chosen name, borne in especial by that great Archbishop of Milan, who spent one of the most illustrious lives recorded in Church history. The Church has never forgotten this great saint; and Milan, where his own liturgy has never been discontinued, is especially devoted to her Sant' Ambrogio, but his history is perhaps a little too much in the clear light of day to afford the convenient shadow requisite for name-spreading legend, and his name has but moderate popularity. Already, as we may suppose, his fame had spread to Britain when Aurelius Ambrosius, the brave champion who so long withstood the Saxon invaders, bore it and left it to the Welsh as Emrys.

In the same spirit was formed Ἀθανασίος (Athanasios), from the word θάνατος (death). The Undying was in itself a name of good hope for a Christian, and it became dear to the Church at large through the great Alexandrian patriarch, the bulwark of the faith. It is in the East that his name has been kept up; the West, though of course knowing it and using it for him individually, shows few namesakes except in Italy, where it is probably a remnant of the Greek influence upon Venice and Naples. The feminine Atanasia is, I believe, solely Italian.

So again the new Christians took the old word ἀνάστασις (meaning an awakening or raising), from ἀνίστημι (to make to stand up), and used it to signify the Resurrection; then formed from Ἀναστάσιος (Anastasios), of the Resurrection,—having the elements of the Resurrection within him or her, for the feminine Anastasia was as early and as frequent as the masculine. Indeed the strange caprices of fate have decreed that, though the masculine form is exceedingly common all over the Eastern Church, it should, in spite of three saints in the calendar, one of papal dignity, be almost unused in the West, except in Bavaria, whilst the feminine, borne by two virgin martyrs, is prevalent everywhere, and chiefly in Ireland. England once used the name more than at present, and then Anglicized it into Anstace. Anstiss, Anstish, Anstyce, all occur frequently as female names in the elder pages of a Devonshire parish register, where Anstice is now a surname. Anstis Squire is in the Froxfield register in 1587, and the name must once have been much more usual.

Amongst these well-chosen baptismal titles may be mentioned Ζωή (Life), no doubt given as meaning that the principle of Eternal Life was then implanted. It is strange that neither the Eastern nor Western calendar shows a Zoë, though a woman thus entitled was said to have been cured of dumbness by a miracle of St. Sebastian, and afterwards to have been the first of the martyrs in the persecution in which he died, about the year 286. After this, Zoë became frequent among the women of the Greek Church, belonging to many of the royal ladies of the Blachernal, among others to her who endeavoured to shake the constancy of the sea-king, Harald Hardrada, to his Muscovite Elisif. From the lower empire it travelled to Russia, where Zoia is at present very common, and in the time of romantic interest in the new Greek kingdom, Zoé became fashionable in France, and still is much used there.^[42]

Section VII.—Royal Names.

Σέβας (Sebas), awe or veneration, was compounded into the word Σεβαστός (Sebastos), as a translation for Augustus, the imperial title coined by Octavianus to express his own peculiar sacred majesty.

It was not, however, apparently used for the original Augustus; at least St. Luke calls him Αὔγουστος; and its technical use probably did not begin till the division of the empire by Diocletian, and his designation of two emperors as Augusti or Sebastoi, with their heirs as Cæsars.

Subsequently to this arrangement no one would have dared to assume the name so intimately connected with the jealous wearers of the purple; and, accordingly, it was a contemporary of the joint emperors, who is the martyr-saint of this name—Sebastianus, a soldier at Rome, who, when other Christians fled, remained there to encourage the flock in the first outburst of the last persecution. He endured a double martyrdom; first, by the well-known shower of arrows directed against him; and next, after his recovery under the care of a pious widow, who had carried away his supposed corpse to bury it, he defied the emperor again, and was beaten to death in the arena by clubs.

Devout women buried him in the catacombs, and his name slept for at least a hundred years till Pope Damasus built a church over his catacomb, which has ever since been called after him, and subsequent popes made presents of his relics to Tuscany, France, and other countries. A notion arose, Mrs. Jameson thinks, from his arrows reminding the classical world of the darts of Apollo, that he was connected with pestilence. His name is thus found all over Europe, though less commonly in England and the Protestant parts of Germany than farther south. Indeed its especial home is Portugal, where it must have been specially cherished in memory of the rash Don Sebastião, the last of the glorious House of Avis, for whose return from the fatal African campaign his country so long looked and longed.

More ancient was the term βασιλεύς (basileus), a king or prince, properly answering to the Latin rex, as did Sebastos to Augustus, but usually applied in the Greek-speaking countries to the emperor. Thence came many interesting words, such as the term used in the empire for courts of royal judgment, Basilica, whence upon their conversion into places of Christian worship, the title Basilicon became synonymous with church.

So, too, that royal-looking serpent who was supposed to wear a crown on his head, and to kill with a look, was the basilisk; and the familiar basilicon ointment was so termed as being fit for a king.

Βασίλειος (kingly) was not infrequent among the early Christians, and gained popularity through that great father of the Church, the Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea, as well as other more obscure saints. It is extremely common in the Eastern Church, and especially in Russia, where the first letter suffers the usual change into V. The feminine, Basilia, is still in use among the modern Greeks, and once even seems to have been known among English ladies, since the sister of Earl Strongbow is thus recorded in history, but its use has died away amongst us.

Section VIII.—Irene.

In heathen days Εἰρήνη (Eirene), peace, was personified and adored as a goddess; in Christian times, when peace on earth was preached, it was formed into a name—that which we know as Irene. Irene was the pious widow, whose care revived St. Sebastian after his first martyrdom, and in 303, three sisters, Agape (love), Irene, and Chionia underwent martyrdom at Thessalonica, but Irene seems to have absorbed almost all the subsequent honour, although Agapè is occasionally to be found in modern Greece, and formed the masculine surname Agapetus, once the property of a pope, and still used in Russia.

Irene was extremely frequent among the Greek empresses, and belonged to the lady who would fain have added herself to the list of Charlemagne’s many wives. Thence the Russians have it as Eereena, and in that ancient Greek colony at Sorrento, where the women’s features so strongly recall their Hellenic descent, Irene is continued as one of their baptismal names.

Thence was derived the name of the great father of the Church, Εἰρηναῖος (Eirenaios), Irenæus; but few of the fathers had popular names, and Irenæus has been little copied, except in Eastern Europe, where the Russians call it Irinej, and the Hungarians, Ernijó.

The Teuton fried and Slavonic mir have been infinitely more fruitful in names than the Greek Irene, and as to the Roman pax, its contributions to nomenclature are all posthumous.

Erasmus comes from ἰράω (íráo), to love, and is related to Eros. The first Erasmus was tortured to death in Diocletian’s persecution, at Formici, whence his relics were transferred to Gaeta, and he there became the patron of the Mediterranean sailors, who used to invoke him as St. Ermo or St. Elmo, at the approach of a storm, and he thus was thought to send the pale pure electric light that shimmers on the topmast, warning the sailor of the impending storm. The name of Erasmus was assumed by the learned Dutchman, under the belief that it translated his name of Gerhard (really spearhard), and from him Rasmus and Asmus are common in Holland, and Rasl has somehow found its way to Bavaria. Russia, too, has Jerassom, but this name lies in doubt between Erasmus and Gerasimus (the venerable), one of the early ascetics of Palestine.

Gelasius, the laugher, was the name of a pope, and for that reason was considered as appropriate and ecclesiastical. It has had the strange lot of being used in Ireland as the substitute for their native name of Giolla Iosa, or servant of Jesus, and was actually so used by the Primate reigning at the time of the English annexation of Ireland.^[43]

Section IX.—Gregorios.

Γρηγόριος (Gregorios), came from γρηγορέω, a late and corrupt form of the verb ἐγείρω (to wake or watch). A watchman was a highly appropriate term for a shepherd of the Church, and accordingly Gregorios was frequent among early bishops. Gregorios Nazianzen the friend of St. Basil, Gregorios Thaumaturgos or the wonder-worker, and others of the same high fame, contributed to render it highly popular in the East, and in the West it was borne by the great pope, for whose sake it became a favourite papal title, so that it has been borne by no less than sixteen occupants of the chair of St. Peter.

It has, however, been far less popular among those who own their sway than among the Eastern Christians who are free from it, and though we find it in Scandinavia, this is only as a modernization of the Norse Grjotgard, while the Macgregors of Scotland draw their descent not from Gregory, but from Grig or Gairig, a Keltic word meaning the fierce.^[44]

Section X.—Georgos.

The Maronite Christians have a tradition that Georgos was a Christian sentinel at Damascus, who connived at the escape of St. Paul, when he was let down in the basket, and was therefore put to death; but whether this be true or false, among what may be called the allegorical saints of the Greek Church, one of the most noted is our own patron Γῆ (Ge), earth, and ἔργω (ergo), anciently Γέργω (fergo), descended from the same source as our own verbs to work and to urge, formed Γεωργός (earthworker or husbandman). A Cappadocian saint and martyr, of whom nothing was known but that he had been a soldier and died in the last persecution, bore the name of Georgios, and was deeply reverenced in the East, where Constantine erected a church in his honour at Byzantium. As in the case of St. Christopher, and probably of St. Alexis, this honoured name became the nucleus of the allegory, of the warrior saint contending with the dragon, and delivering the oppressed Church, and of course the lovers of marvel turned the parable into substance. In 494, Pope Gelasius tried to separate the true Georgius from the legend, which he omitted from the offices of the Church, but popular fancy was too strong for the pope, and the story was carried on till the imaginations of the Crusaders before Jerusalem fixed upon St. George as the miraculous champion whom they beheld fighting in their cause, as Santiago had done for Galicia. Thereby Burgundy and Aquitaine adopted him as their patron saint; and the Burgundian Henry carried him to Portugal, and put that realm under his protection; as a hundred years later Richard I. did by England, making “St. George for merry England” the most renowned of battle-cries. From Burgundy he was taken by the Germans as a patron; and Venice, always connected with Greece, already glorified him as her patron, so that “In the name of St. George and St. Michael I dub thee knight,” was the formulary throughout half Europe, and no saint had so many chivalrous orders instituted in his honour.

Still the name was less early used in the West than might have been expected, perhaps from the difficulty of pronunciation. Georgios always prevailed in the East, and came to Scotland in the grand Hungarian importation, with the ancestor of the House of Drummond, who bear three wavy lines on their shield in memory of a great battle fought by the side of a river in Hungary, before the Atheling family were brought back to England, attended by this Hungarian noble. On the usurpation of Harold, he fled with them to Scotland, and there founded a family where the Eastern Christian name of George has always been an heir-loom. It was probably from the same Hungarian source that Germany first adopted Georg, or Jürgen, as it is differently spelt, and thence sent it to England with the House of Brunswick; for, in spite of George of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., and a few other exceptions, it had been an unusual name previously, and scarcely a single George appears in our parish registers before 1700, although afterwards it multiplied to such an extent as to make it doubtful whether George, John, or Charles be the most common designation of Englishmen.

The feminine is quite a modernism. The first English lady on record, so called, was a godchild of Anne of Denmark, who caused her to be christened Georgia Anna. The name had, however, previously existed on the Continent.

Venice took its Giorgio direct from Greece, but the name was not popular elsewhere in Italy; and at Cambrai, an isolated instance occurs in the year 1300, nor has it ever been common in France. The Welsh Urien (Uranius) descends from heaven to earth by considering George as his equivalent. The Irish translate the name into Keltic as Seoirgi.^[45]