Names in the Bible (1)
Introduction
and transliteration
André H. Roosma
30 Aug. 2025
Names – for us often no more than a label; by mentioning the name of
something or someone, the other person knows what or whom you are talking about.
It's important that everybody knows and uses the same name, but which name
that is, isn't important in itself.
In Biblical times things were quite different. People and Gods/idols were
given names that said something about the person themselves. About their
calling, about how the birth went, or what the parents expected of them.
Often, the baby's name was given by God and had prophetic meaning.
Because these names are written in Hebrew and usually haven't been
translated or explained, the meaning of most names is unknown to many of us.
This is further exacerbated by the low confidence Bible translators appear to
have in the intellectual capacity of the average western person. It seems that
Bible translators have a lower opinion of their audience than the average
journalist. An example of this is the Biblical name נְתַניָהוּ - Netanyāhu
(ā = long a). Many Bible translators have
simplified this to Nethaniah (Dutch: Netanja or Nethanja). However, English
journalists refer to the Prime Minister of Israel simply as Netanyahu.
Germans and Dutch journalist use Netanjahu and French Netanyahou. It is
essentially the same name, some 2,800 years ago in the Biblical era of the
kings, and still relevant today in Israel...
And the meaning of that name is quite extraordinary! נְתַנ - Nethan is derived from the
verb נָתַנ - nātan - to give, and in
יָהוּ - Yāhu, we recognize the
slightly shortened version of the glorious Name of Israel's God:
YaHUaH (pronounced with an emphasis on the final a). Both the Biblical
נְתַניָהוּ and the current Prime Minister of Israel indicate through
their names that they were given by YaHUaH, the impressive God of
Israel.In the abbreviated name Netaniah, I hardly recognize any of that
anymore.
Something similar applies to names like Elijah, actually: El-i-yahu (YaHU is
my God; think of his big manifestation (his life mission) at Mt. Karmel, where
he made all Israel say that again!), and Jeremiah, actually: Yirme-yahu (YaHU is exalted).
A suggestion might be: just provide the explanation, and don't worry about
how to spell the name.
Well, I have an interesting anecdote to share. I was once taking the train
from The Hague to Rotterdam (it runs: Schiphol Airport - Leiden - The Hague
[actually: Den Haag Hollands Spoor] - Delft - Rotterdam). Across from me sat a
foreigner who, as it turned out, had already boarded the train at Schiphol
Airport. When the train pulled away from Delft station, he spoke to me. He'd
been told it was less than a half-hour ride, but that time had passed, and all
in all, he still hadn't seen his destination... I asked him where he was
supposed to go. It turned out to be 'The Hague'... The signs at 'Den Haag
Hollands Spoor' station hadn't made any sense to him at all, and it took me a
while to convince him that he'd actually been misled and that the city of 'The
Hague' is actually called 'Den Haag' here in the Netherlands...
Okay, so changing names to something that is locally more palatable isn't a
very good idea. Based on the above observations, I've decided to explain the
Hebrew names from the Bible on this website often and to transliterate them as
correctly as possible; that is, to translate them from Hebrew, letter by
letter, into our (Latin) script. I do this according to an internationally
accepted code table that uses as few exotic characters as possible:
When you hover your mouse over the
transliterations, you'll see some explanations;
the gray variants mainly concern nuances in pronunciation and I don't always use them.
And the main Masoretic vowel signs:
A few considerations:
- Some people transliterate both the soft ב
and the ו with a v; then you no longer know
what was written; that's why I've chosen the transliterations above.
- A similar situation applies to the soft כ,
which is sometimes transliterated as ch, just like the ח.
- In the Netherlands, שׁ is sometimes
transliterated as sj; however, sh is more consistent with the pronunciation
and with international usage in transliteration.
- ו as a vowel and the vowel ֻ are also transliterated more phonetically as oe in
the Netherlands or as oo in English. Here too, I'm following international
standards, confident that it's easy to understand that u sounds like oo (as
in English cool) in Hebrew, as it does in most languages.
I don't want to be legalistic in all this. The Greek New Testament that has
been handed down to us spelled the name of God's Son as Ἰησοῦς or Ιησου - Jèsous/Jèsou, while His
Hebrew name was probably יְהוֹשׁוַּע - Yehoshua‘/ Yahushua‘ or יְשׁוּעָה - Yeshu‘āh.
However, I find the recognizability of the Hebrew characters more important
than their pronunciation, because less is known about their pronunciation in
antiquity than about the written characters. This, along with international
standards, has guided my choices above.
However, remember that any transliteration remains an approximation. The
best understanding comes from learning the original language yourself.
The most important name in the Bible is, of course, that One Name, that
glorious Name of the Protagonist and Inspirator, the Creator of heaven and
earth: YaHUaH. I discussed this several years ago in the extensive study
‘The magnificent and most lovely Name of the God Who
was there, Who is there, and Who will be there’  . In that study,
I also explain why I chose to write this special Name-above-all-names with 4
capitals.
I have also addressed that other very important Name, the Son, in, among other
places, the article: ‘His Name is Jesus / Yeshu‘ah - on the lovely Name of the Son of God’.
In subsequent articles, I hope to highlight several other beautiful names
from the Bible. In any case, you now know why I spell some names slightly
differently than they may appear in your Bible.
Hallelu-YaH!
Your reactions (questions, additions, suggestions) are welcome via e-mail !
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