My wife and I argued long and hard when choosing names for our children. And fair enough.
It’s not something that you want to get wrong as parents. After all, your child is stuck with the name you choose for them — at least until they are legally old enough to change it. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that, though.
When you’re expecting, you pour over baby name ideas and give them what I call the “Schoolyard Test.” It goes something like this: “What could nasty kids in the schoolyard do to this name to make it into a horrible insult?”
Louise? Not sure about that one.
Karen? Probably not.
Dick? I don’t think so.
Many couples turn to the Bible for divine inspiration when choosing a name for their soon-to-be-born bundle of joy. My name, Daniel, is taken from the Bible.
Other Biblical names like Jonathan, Sarah, Matthew, James, Phoebe, and David are still among the most popular baby names in many western countries to this day.
Occasionally I meet a person whose parents decided to dig further into the deep, dark recesses of the Bible — you know, the parts that no one really reads — searching for a name for their child. I met a real-life Methuselah once. He was a nice guy, but it left me wondering what his parents were smoking when they named the poor guy.
Did they open their Bible while blindfolded and just randomly point to a name?
The Bible should come with a warning for parents: This book contains some names that are appropriate and good for children in the 21st century interspersed with a bunch of other names that were appropriate and good two-thousand years ago in ancient Palestine. USE WITH CAUTION.
So, I present to you ten Biblical names NOT to call your children.
Dodo
Yes, there is a person called Dodo in the Bible. And back then, when Dodo’s father said to Dodo’s mother, “How about we call our son Dodo?” it probably seemed like a great idea.
But, as tempting as it might be to name your child after an extinct bird famously known for its clumsiness, best to leave this one alone.
Dorcas
Now, at first glance, you might love the name, Dorcas. It might have gone straight onto your shortlist. After all, the meaning of the name from its original Greek origins is “Gazelle.” How nice. The Bible describes Dorcas as a charitable woman who abounded in good deeds and gifts of mercy.
However, the Brits, the Aussies, and the South Africans among us would also know that, colloquially, Dorcas is also a term used to describe someone who is ‘slightly slow’ in nature… you know, a bit thick.
I remember being called a Dorcas in grade school, so it doesn’t pass the schoolyard test.
Judas
Just like people stopped naming their children Adolf in the middle of the last century — for some reason — Judas has really gone out of fashion as well.
I suppose the fact that he betrayed the very son of God kind of quelled enthusiasm for the name Judas.
Ishbi-benob
My wife and both of my daughters have hyphenated names (a result of our inability to pick just one name we liked). Hyphenated names can be cool.
Ishbi-benob, however, is not.
I suppose Ishbi-benob’s parents couldn’t pick between Ishbi and Benob, right? So they decided to use both. Personally, I like Ishbi, better than I like Benob. Each to their own.
Ham
Noah — of ark fame — had three sons and decided to name one of them Ham. Back then, it was cool to name your child after the side of a pig, but not now.
You might like ham on your festive table, but best to avoid naming your child Ham.
I have seen chubby little kids at the mall stuffing their faces with chocolate bars and often thought, “Ham would be a good name for this child.” But best not to set your child on that trajectory.
Ichabod
I’ll bet you didn’t know Ichabod was a Biblical name.
And why would you? Almost no one has used it since 3000 B.C., and for good reason. Ichabod’s mother died immediately after he was born, uttering his name with her final breath. The name means… “God has abandoned us.”
Uplifting.
The name Ichabod made a brief comeback when Washington Irving wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” but then, it faded into obscurity again since no one wanted to name their kid after a man who was killed by a headless horseman.
Mash
When I think of Mash, I think of a way of serving potatoes with sausages. Obviously, Mash’s parents didn’t think this through. Either that or back then, Mash was a great name.
“Hey, Mom! Can I have Mash over to play?”
“Hey, Mash! Can you put out the Trash?”
It just rolls off the tongue.
Nimrod
For some reason, the name “Nimrod” kind of just sounds like an insult no matter how carefully it comes out of your mouth. Imagine that you had a friend called Nimrod, and you were trying to get his attention. If you were to call out, “Hey, Nimrod!” I’m reasonably confident that the people around would assume you were verbally assaulting someone.
For the record, the Urban Dictionary defines Nimrod as a person, typically a male, who is dimly lit in the mind. In other words, not a very bright cookie.
Puah
“PUAH!”
It’s a noise that one might make when they encounter an unpleasant odor. It is the cat pooping on the floor. It is the stuff you found at the back of the fridge that has been sitting unnoticed in a Tupperware container for months. It is your teenage son’s football socks.
It’s all of those things and more. The one thing it is not, is a good name for a child.
Honorable Mention: Brothers Uz And Buz
If you happen to be the lucky parent of twin boys, you might consider naming them Uz and Buz after the Biblical brothers of the same name because, hey… rhyming names are cool, right?
You might think it’s cute, but by the time your twin boys, Uz and Buz, are teenagers, they will hate you.
Therapy will follow.
Best to get the name right
If you must go to an ancient text for your baby’s name, then best to stick with Peter, Paul, or John. Mary, Rebecca, Leah, Ruth… even Abigail are all reasonable and safe choices, even if they happen to be a bit vanilla these days.
But, for the love of God, please don’t call your child Delilah, Jezebel, Ebenezer, or any of the names in this article, for that matter. You might think you’re being adventurous and brave, breaking new ground by rehashing a name that was first used five thousand years ago. But the truth is, by today’s standards, most of those Biblical names stink.
PUAH!
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This post was previously published on Backyard Church.
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