Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

You are right that biblical names are certainly meaningful, but:

1. I suspect that much is lost by clever editorial tendentious  
manipulations.
2. It may not mean what you think it was intended to mean, just by  
being written like a known word, a combination of words (look-a-son),  
or seemingly containing a recognizable root.
3. I agree that Isaac may have the last laugh.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Oct 6, 2011, at 8:57 PM, Will Parsons wrote:

> Hi Isaac,
>
> On Thu, 6 Oct 2011 19:32:35 -0400, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:
> > I don't know and am not interested in the hypothetical "Hurrian", but
> > a Hebrew name is not a word and may not mean what it appears to mean
> > if it were a word. One may think that YAEL is an Ibex, but it needs
> > not be so, the name may just happen to consist of the consonants Yod-
> > Aiyn-Lamed.
> > In my humble opinion it is out of the question that the name YICXAQ
> > יצחק means 'he will laugh'.
>
> What, Isaac, no sense of humour :) ?
>
> Seriously, though, it is true that names need not have meanings.   
> Lately,
> in the US at least, there has been a marked increase in the number  
> of names
> that have been "made up", i.e., are chosen by parents on the basis of
> "sounding nice", rather than being either traditional names or  
> names having
> meanings in themselves.  But this does seem to be a distinctly recent
> phenomemon.  In ancient times it seems that name usually contained  
> meaning,
> either directly, or indirectly by way of a person being named after  
> someone
> else.
>
> --
> Will Parsons