Biblical boy names
One rule for this page: the name has to belong to somebody who actually appears in the Bible, and every entry tells you where to find him — book, and usually chapter — so the claim is checkable rather than atmospheric.
- NoahNOH-uhGenesis
Genesis 6–9: the man who builds the ark, rides out the flood and afterwards plants the first vineyard. The Hebrew noaḥ is rest.
- AbrahamAY-bruh-hamGenesis
Genesis 12–25. He is Abram until God renames him in Genesis 17, where the longer form is glossed on the spot as father of a multitude.
- IsaacEYE-zikGenesis
Genesis 21–35. The name records Sarah laughing at the promise of a son in her old age: yitzḥaq, he laughs.
- JacobJAY-kubGenesis
Genesis 25–49. Born gripping his twin's heel, which is what the name says, and renamed Israel after the night-long wrestling match at the Jabbok.
- JosephJOH-zifGenesis
Genesis 37–50. The coat, the pit, the prison and then the running of Egypt's granaries — the longest single narrative in the book.
- MosesMOH-zizExodus
Exodus through Deuteronomy. Pharaoh's daughter names him in Exodus 2 and the text reads it as drawn out of the water, though most scholars prefer an Egyptian derivation.
- AaronAIR-unExodus
Exodus 4 onward: Moses's older brother, his spokesman before Pharaoh, and Israel's first high priest. The etymology is honestly unknown.
- CalebKAY-lebNumbers
Numbers 13–14. One of twelve scouts sent into Canaan, and one of only two who came back saying it could be taken.
- JoshuaJOSH-oo-uhJoshua
Moses's successor, with a book of his own. Hebrew Yehoshua contracts to Yeshua — which is also the name that reached English, through Greek and Latin, as Jesus.
- GideonGID-ee-unJudges
Judges 6–8. Found threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from raiders, and told to fight anyway; he wins with three hundred men, torches and trumpets.
- SamuelSAM-yoo-ul1 Samuel
1 Samuel 1–16. The boy who hears a voice in the night at Shiloh and grows into the prophet who anoints Israel's first two kings.
- DavidDAY-vid1 Samuel
1 Samuel 16 to 1 Kings 2, plus half the Psalms by attribution. No other figure in the Hebrew Bible is drawn at anything like this length.
- SolomonSOL-uh-mun1 Kings
1 Kings 1–11: the temple, the wisdom, the judgment of the two mothers, and a name built on shalom.
- BoazBOH-azRuth
Ruth 2–4, the landowner who marries Ruth and becomes David's great-grandfather. The same name is on one of the two bronze pillars of the temple in 1 Kings 7:21.
- Josiahjoh-SY-uh2 Kings
2 Kings 22–23. Crowned at eight; at twenty-six he has a lost book of the law read aloud to him and reorganises the national religion around it.
- Elijahih-LY-juh1 Kings
1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 2. The contest on Mount Carmel, the still small voice at Horeb, and an exit by chariot of fire.
- Ezekielih-ZEE-kee-ulProphets
His own book, written among the deportees in Babylon: the wheels, the valley of dry bones, and a temple measured out in a vision.
- JonahJOH-nuhProphets
Four chapters, one large fish, and a prophet left furious that his warning worked. The name is the ordinary Hebrew word for a dove.
- MatthewMATH-yooGospels
The first Gospel, and its author by tradition. Matthew 9:9 calls him away from a tax booth; Mark and Luke tell the same scene with the man named Levi.
- LukeLOOKGospels
The third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles — together about a quarter of the New Testament. Colossians 4:14 calls him the beloved physician.
- JohnJONGospels
A Gospel, three letters and Revelation, plus John the Baptist in all four Gospels. Hebrew Yoḥanan, Yahweh is gracious.
- JamesJAYMZGospels
Two of the twelve, and separately the brother of Jesus who leads the Jerusalem church in Galatians 1:19. The Greek is Iakobos — the same name as Jacob, bent into James by Late Latin Iacomus.
- PeterPEE-terGospels
Matthew 16:18, where Jesus renames Simon with the Aramaic kepha, rock, and the Greek keeps the pun going between Petros and petra.
- SilasSY-lusActs
Acts 15:40 onward, jailed with Paul at Philippi and freed by an earthquake. Paul's letters call the same man Silvanus.
Patriarchs, prophets, apostles and the people in the margins
The list above mixes four very different kinds of bearer, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. The patriarchs come first and carry the most weight: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are invoked as a set throughout both testaments, and Jacob's twelve sons supply another rank of names still in ordinary use — Judah, Levi, Asher, Benjamin. Before them, the genealogy in Genesis 5 supplies Adam, Seth, Enoch and Jared, men about whom the text says almost nothing except how long they lived.
The prophets divide by the length of their books rather than their importance. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are the major three; the twelve minor prophets — among them Micah, Obadiah, Jonah and Malachi, who closes the Christian Old Testament — are minor only in word count. Daniel is the odd one out: Christian Bibles file him with the prophets, but the Hebrew canon puts him among the Writings, with the Psalms and Proverbs.
The New Testament names split again. Matthew, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Simon, James and Peter are apostles; Luke is a writer who never met Jesus; Paul begins as Saul of Tarsus and is first called Paul in Acts 13:9; Stephen is not an apostle at all but one of the seven appointed in Acts 6, and the first Christian killed for it. Timothy and Titus exist for us almost entirely as the addressees of letters. Two angels are named in this canon and no more: Gabriel, who appears to Daniel and then to Mary, and Michael, who fights in Daniel 10, Jude 9 and Revelation 12.
Two practical cautions. First, check how far the English has drifted from the original, because it can be a long way: Jude and Judah are one Hebrew name, Jesús and Joshua are one Hebrew name, and James is a Latin scribe's version of Jacob. If you want the ancient form rather than the English one, it is often already on the shelf. Second, read the story before you commit to a minor figure. Uriah is a loyal soldier whom David has killed in 2 Samuel 11. Adriel gets one line in 1 Samuel 18:19 and a grim postscript later. Tobias is a lovely story but from the Book of Tobit, which is scripture for Catholic and Orthodox readers and apocrypha for Protestant ones — worth knowing which side of that line your family stands on.