Most people know that “Jesus” means “Yah Saves” and that “Peter” means “Rock,” but what about those name clusters we find at the end of the epistles? What do their names signify?
For instance, Paul greeted 27 different people in the last chapter of Romans. Let’s sample a dozen or so to show how we might construe them in more familiar terms.
Of course, it’s hard to say exactly what their parents or slaveholders had in mind when they named them, for there are many possible connections. For instance, when we were selecting a name for our son, Caleb, we read that it meant “lover of dogs,” or, better, “faithful.” But we named him, instead, for an octogenarian hero in the book of Joshua. On the other hand, we didn’t name our daughter Chesed for an Old Testament character (the fourth son of Nahor, in Genesis 22:22), but for the Hebrew concept, “lovingkindness.”
Settling on the original meaning is one thing; then finding a modern counterpart is another. It’s a very precarious enterprise. But here goes: “Aquila” means “eagle,” so we’ll go with another bird name, “Hawk”; “Epaenetus” means “praiseworthy,” as does the French name “Antoine”; “Andronicus” is built from words for man and conqueror, so we’ll call him “Champ”; “Ampliatus” connects with amplification or largeness, so we might call him “Hulk”; “Ubanus” signifies elegance and refinement, so let’s use “Winthrop”; “Stachys” denotes a “head of grain,” so we might turn the Little Rascals for another plant name, either “Buckwheat” or “Alfalfa”; Tryphena means “delicate,” so “Lacey” will do; “Persis” connects the woman to Persia, so we can use “Francine” to connect with another specific nation; “Rufus” means “red haired,” so we’ll leave it at “Red”; “Asyncritus” means “uneven” and thus “incomparable,” so “Ace” should suffice, especially since it sounds like the original name’s beginning; “Phlegon” means “burning,” so “Sparky” fits; “Julia” connects with a distinguished family name (that of Julius Caesar), so we can substitute “Georgia,” which traces back to King George; “Nereus” was “the old man of the sea” in Greek mythology, so we can call him “Davy,” short for Davy Jones, as in “Davy Jones’ locker”; and then there’s Philologus (“lover of words”), whom we might call “The Professor.”
Of course, there’s a lot of whimsy here, but let’s pick up on Paul’s words in our Imaginative Abridged Naming Translation (IANT) of Romans 16:3-16:
Greet Hawk . . . my fellow worker in Christ Jesus, who risked [his] neck for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in [his] house. Greet my beloved Antoine, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia . . .
Greet Champ . . . , my kinsman and my fellow prisoner. [He is] well known to the apostles, and [he was] in Christ before me. Greet Hulk, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Winthrop, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Alfalfa . . . Greet [that] worker in the Lord, Lacey. Greet the beloved Francine, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Red, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Ace, Sparky, . . . and the brothers who are with them. Greet The Professor, . . . Davy and his sister . . . and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
Maybe this makes them seem less distant, more like us, for they really are cut from the same cloth as believers today. The point is not so much to bring them down to our level as to raise us to theirs, as beloved colleagues of Paul and the Apostles.