Elkanah and Elkenah

[nuclearfuels]

So like why would Eli name one of his sons after an idol god - one of which Abraham destroyed, bruh?

Wouldn't this be like naming your child Gentile or Babylon or something like that, notwithstanding the e vs a variation?

1 Now there was a certain man of ^aRamathaim-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was ^bElkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:

2 And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had ^ano children.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/1-sam/1?lang=eng

Elkenah

See also Gods; Idolatry

people’s hearts turned to god of Elkenah, Abr. 1:6.

priest of Elkenah tries to take Abraham’s life, Abr. 1:7.

altar stands before god of Elkenah, Abr. 1:13.

the Lord breaks down altar of Elkenah, Abr. 1:20.

the Lord sent angels to deliver Abraham from gods of Elkenah, Abr. 2:13 (3:20).

[rongo]

Pretty far removed in time from Abraham's time (and the northern Syria milieu of Elkenah, Libnah, Pharaoh, Mamackrah, et. al.). 

Depending on the time period in Israel, it wasn't uncommon for righteous people to carry -baal names. It didn't carry the same meaning as it did for actual worshippers of Baal. Kind of like having students today named Thor or Isis --- the parents liked the names and thought they were cool. In some cases, they are even observant Christians, but naming their children nominally after Nordic or Egyptian pagan gods isn't signalling pagan or idol worship. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

I knew an elders quorum president in America who had given all his offspring names beginning with 'S', including Sherem ... 

[rongo]

4 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I knew an elders quorum president in America who had given all his offspring names beginning with 'S', including Sherem ... 

I also know a Kumen (he's a high priest, and a temple worker). 

[Calm]

Some people care more about the meaning of a name than who has carried the name in the past.

Elkanah means God has purchased or God has created.  Beautiful.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/search?lang=eng&query=Elkanah&facet=scriptures&subfacet=ot&page=1

Edited June 15, 2022 by Calm

[JLHPROF]

30 minutes ago, Calm said:

Some people care more about the meaning of a name than who has carried the name in the past.

Elkanah means God has purchased or God has created.  Beautiful.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/search?lang=eng&query=Elkanah&facet=scriptures&subfacet=ot&page=1

Mary means bitter and Savannah means barren.  Super popular girl names.

Some people also don't care about the meaning.  Even if they should.

Fortunately in Utah parents make up silly names, sometimes it seems they're trying to get as close to child cruelty as they can.  😂

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

So like why would Eli name one of his sons after an idol god - one of which Abraham destroyed, bruh?

Wouldn't this be like naming your child Gentile or Babylon or something like that, notwithstanding the e vs a variation?

1 Now there was a certain man of ^aRamathaim-zophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was ^bElkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite:

2 And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had ^ano children.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/1-sam/1?lang=eng

Elkenah

See also Gods; Idolatry

people’s hearts turned to god of Elkenah, Abr. 1:6.

priest of Elkenah tries to take Abraham’s life, Abr. 1:7.

altar stands before god of Elkenah, Abr. 1:13.

the Lord breaks down altar of Elkenah, Abr. 1:20.

the Lord sent angels to deliver Abraham from gods of Elkenah, Abr. 2:13 (3:20).

Eli wasn’t good at the whole parenting thing.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Mary means bitter and Savannah means barren.  Super popular girl names.

Some people also don't care about the meaning.  Even if they should.

Fortunately in Utah parents make up silly names, sometimes it seems they're trying to get as close to child cruelty as they can.  😂

That has been my response at times.  There is one family in my ward I have to stop myself from laughing every time I see the names…more in fondness rather than mocking because sweet family and sweet kids but rather shy…hope it wasn’t from ridicule over the names.  At least in Utah everyone does it.  I asked my grandkids if anyone gets teased about unusual names and all three said no, so here’s hoping that it isn’t that they just didn’t notice.

So many are trying so hard to be unique it has somehow acquired a sameness here.  

The ‘slightly different’ I get as I dropped an h out of my name when in high school after I learned that was how Mom intended to spell it, but the nurse inserted it unintentionally (Christine instead of Cristine) in part because there were two other Chris’s (Chrises?) in many of my classes (we all took the same AP and science classes and there was only one or two ways to fit the schedule so every year for four years, we average about 3 overlapping classes…only in PE and Home Ec was I the only Chris/Cris).  But when a parent uses three Y’s instead of 2 I’s and an E or turns a five letter name into a ten letter, that is a burden the kids are going to carry the rest of their lives.  I hope most think it cool.  I love the difference in mine, it just looks more balanced to me and it is nice not being one of dozens (ten in Utah according to White Pages as opposed to just me, which means maybe the one other Cristine moved out of state) as my married name is the 27th most common in the US.  There is only one other of the same spelling in Utah…however, I automatically add every time I tell anyone looking up or inputting my name “spelled CR”, I am now always laughing at myself that my name is not Cristine, but “Cristine spelled CR”.  If my name was more complicated, having to spell out my name fully each time and likely having to do it multiple times would drive me buggy. And even with my simple correction, about 25% of the time I get mail to Christine….. .  It is a way to spot spam at least…though I did get some legal papers done a couple of months ago with the incorrect spelling.  Thankfully it was the signature that mattered, so they didn’t have to do them all over before submitting because I was heading towards another appointment when I dropped them off.  But I have had to have wills redone, tax returns, doctors, notarized documents, etc.  And sometimes there is an extra long pause when looking me up until I repeat “spelled CR”.  Computers can be fussy.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Calm

[Pyreaux]

The pagan gods were real. Destroying an idol of a god is not the same as denying they exist. Many of the angelic Hosts of Heaven, the Council of God, are the equivalent to the seventy gods of the Canaanite faith (Deuteronomy 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3, 5; 23:4-5; 2 Chronicles 33:3; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalms 33:6; 148:1-5; Isaiah 34:4 45:12; Jeremiah 8:2; 19:13; 33:22; Dan 8:10; Zephaniah 1:5).

Israel sins by worshiping "gods [(H#430)]" of other nations they were not allotted to (which implies there are other people who were assigned to other gods), and they are also called "demons" (Deuteronomy 32:17) which means they are not just idols, because demons are real spiritual beings. The Pharisees and Christ both acknowledge that Ba'al-zebub, who was a god, the Ba'al of Ekron (2 Kings 1:1-6) is a real spiritual being, a prince among devils (Matthews 12:24; Luke 11:14-20).

A few of Jacob's sons were named after Canaanite gods. Leah, reserved the right to name her handmaiden Zilpah's children, though the explanation for these names appears to have been edited. Leah first is said to have exclaimed "by Gad [ba Gad (H#1409) fortune]" during the birth of the first son, and so calls him "Gad", but at the birth of the next son she is portrayed as saying something in Hebrew that is unintelligible, though it is usually translated as "by my happiness [b'oshri (H#837)]", so he was named "Asher [(H#835)]" (Gen 30:10-13).

Though the prefix of "[b-]" used by Leah is what is used to invoke a god, such as "by [Elohim]" (Gen 21:23; 1 Sa 30:15; Neh 13:24; 2 Chr 36:13; Isa 56:16) and "by [Yahweh]" (Josh 2:12; Jdg 21:7; 1 Sa 24:22; 28:10; 2 Sa 19:8; 1 Kg 2:8, 23, 42). When she said "by Gad" she was invoking a known Canaanite deity of good fortune, but there is no such known deity as "Oshri". The Hebrew objects discovered in Upper Syria, Leah's homeland, is where Israelites would invoke "Asherah [asera (H#6253)]", the Canaanite goddess Athirat, to assist them during child birth. Leah probably originally said "by Asherah [basherah]" and so called that son "Asher" as that is the masculine form of Asherah (W.L. Reed, The Asherah of the Old Testament [1949] 80-81, 87).

Edited June 16, 2022 by Pyreaux

[filovirus]

The worst is Elimilech and Naomi. They named their sons Mahlon and Chilion. Roughly translated to Weakly and Sickly.

[Calm]

33 minutes ago, filovirus said:

The worst is Elimilech and Naomi. They named their sons Mahlon and Chilion. Roughly translated to Weakly and Sickly.

My guess in that case, the names were supplied by those telling the story down the road to fit the roles they played. (Especially since the actual meanings could be related to “dance” and “completion”).  https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mahlon-and-chilion (came across this because I am curious about the traditions about their death since the Bible says nothing but they croaked….the why is apparently lack of faith and marrying Moabites before the law was changed to allowing marriage to Moabite women or maybe that part was added after the law was changed to forbid it, I am too tired to figure that out…I am guessing it was once okay because the woman typically converts officially to her husband’s faith).

But there are traditions in some places of naming your kid an underwhelming name so the gods aren’t eager to take them down a peg or two…or so I remember reading back when I was into baby names (names have fascinated me since I was a kid, I was always shocked when I asked a friend what their name meant and they didn’t know).

Edited June 15, 2022 by Calm

[JLHPROF]

25 minutes ago, Calm said:

That has been my response at times.  There is one family in my ward I have to stop myself from laughing every time I see the names…more in fondness rather than mocking because sweet family and sweet kids but rather shy…hope it wasn’t from ridicule over the names.  At least in Utah everyone does it.  I asked my grandkids if anyone gets teased about unusual names and all three said no, so here’s hoping that they just didn’t notice.

So many are trying so hard to be unique it has somehow acquired a sameness here.  

The ‘slightly different’ I get as I dropped an h out of my name when in high school after I learned that was how Mom intended to spell it, but the nurse inserted it unintentionally (Christine instead of Cristine) in part because there were two other Chris’s (Chrises?) in many of my classes (we all took the same AP and science classes and there was only one or two ways to fit the schedule so every year for four years, we average about 3 overlapping classes…only in PE and Home Ec was I the only Chris/Cris).  But when a parent uses three Y’s instead of 2 I’s and an E or turns a five letter name into a ten letter, that is a burden the kids are going to carry the rest of their lives.  I hope most think it cool.  I love the difference in mine, it just looks more balanced to me and it is nice not being one of dozens (ten in Utah according to White Pages as opposed to just me, which means maybe the one other Cristine moved out of state) as my married name is the 27th most common in the US.  There is only one other of the same spelling in Utah…however, I automatically add every time I tell anyone looking up or inputting my name “spelled CR”, I am now always laughing at myself that my name is not Cristine, but “Cristine spelled CR”.  If my name was more complicated, having to spell out my name fully each time and likely having to do it multiple times would drive me buggy. And even with my simple correction, about 25% of the time I get mail to Christine….. .  It is a way to spot spam at least…though I did get some legal papers done a couple of months ago with the incorrect spelling.  Thankfully it was the signature that mattered, so they didn’t have to do them all over before submitting because I was heading towards another appointment when I dropped them off.  But I have had to have wills redone, tax returns, doctors, notarized documents, etc.  And sometimes there is an extra long pause when looking me up until I repeat “spelled CR”.  Computers can be fussy.

 

[Calm]

14 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

 

Ouch

[rongo]

It's not just Mormon couples any more. People of all stripes name their kids the weirdest things --- and/or go for the wildest spellings imagineable. Not just a Mormon thing.

[rongo]

About 12 years ago, I was taking attendance on the first day of school. A white kid with long hair and a smirk answered to Abdullah Collins. Sure enough, checking his ID confirmed that that was his name --- but he was quick to add that he went by Dane. Come to find out that his mom and I went to Jr. high together (she had him when she was 15). No Muslim connection at all --- she just liked the name Abdullah. I asked him about it as the year progressed. He was quite a character (in a good way), and it wasn't offensive to ask him how she chose his name. 

Overtly religious names can have no religious tie at all.

[Pyreaux]

I assume there was nothing wrong with his Abdullah Oblongata? 😃

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, rongo said:

It's not just Mormon couples any more. People of all stripes name their kids the weirdest things --- and/or go for the wildest spellings imagineable. Not just a Mormon thing.

It never was, but Utah was particularly infested with them and I haven’t noticed Church kids being any more unusual than the rest of the community outside of Utah in the four places I lived…but I don’t think it was just church members doing it in Utah, so more Utahn thing than Utah Mormon thing…But who knows, maybe the nonmembers I have seen doing it are exmembers.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Calm

[nuclearfuels]

16 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Eli wasn’t good at the whole parenting thing.

I needed the laugh this brought. Thank  you