“Name That Name”

Wednesday, November 04, 2020

     I'm wondering why names associated with the people in the New Testament don't seem like names that would be used in that part of the world (i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke, Mary, Ruth, etc.).  Can you shed some light on that for me?  Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Nameologist

Dear Nameologist,

The reason for this is because our English translations Anglicize the names found in the original Greek New Testament.  For example, Peter would be pronounced ‘pet-rone’, and Andrew would be pronounced ‘an-dray-an’.  Our English translations simply take the Greek names and make them easier to pronounce in our English language.

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