Make A Name For Oneself

[luna-tic]

Why in biblical depiction do all the characters only have a first name such as Matthew, Luke, Paul, Peter etc?
surely there was more than one person with the same first name and what happened to their surnames?

[Quizmonster]

Surnames began to appear in Europe only around the 12th century. In the Middle East - the Bible lands - even today people are often known by association with their fathers. For example, most Arabs have names along the lines of Hussein Abdullah Khamis al-Busaidi. This means his given name is Hussein, Abdullah is/was his father's name and Khamis is/was his grandfather's name. The al-Busaidi element is a tribal or geographical reference. Saddam Hussein, for example, was al-Takriti, meaning 'from the district around Takrit'.
Oddly enough, in the fishing communities around the north-east of Scotland, such a system of naming still exists. Thus you might find someone called Jeems's Ailick (James's Alex) to separate him from all the other Alexanders.
Other identifiers in the Middle East, just as were used in Europe, would have been the person's job or his appearance. So we have Butcher, Baker, Smith and so on as well as Cruickshank (twisted leg), White, Fairhead etc.

[luna-tic]

Thanks Quizmonster for the detailed answer. So according to your reply, the names of those particular people I spoke of must of at some time in history been anglicised for our convenience.

[Quizmonster]

Yes, Luna. Click here for a website with explanations of many biblical names.

[kempie]

Everything in the Bible was anglicised.

[luna-tic]

Thanks kempie, I realise that the whole of the bible was not only translated to English but many other languages aswell. I think it would of made more interesting reading for those who are interested if they kept the names as they were.

[luna-tic]

Thanks again Quizzy for the list of names. Very interesting.