So they ate salmon?
no, I think they ate Salmon.
That reminds me of a friend I worked with at a Christian camp who challenged everyone to embrace the fact that God’s omnipresence meant that God is in everything. So this tree is God; this rock is God; my shoes are God. His ideas didn’t go over too well.
Later he and I came to the conclusion that Christianity’s concept of omnipresence really translates to the belief that God fills the vacuum between the molecules. So God isn’t everywhere; he’s just everywhere that everything else isn’t. It was kind of sad. We were hoping he could turn all those Christian camp leaders into panentheists.
Well, my last name means “son of John”, but it’s not my maiden name. Or it is, and I went back, or whatever. I took my mother’s maiden name.
My first name, Andrew, means “manly” in greek. OH YEAH!
I’ve been told my origional last name, Israel, means “one who fought with God and won.”
I think that means fought alongside god, but I’ve always interpreted it the other way, one who fought against the ultimate authority and won.
I had a friend from inda in college, who was always asking people what their names meant. He had a theory that if parents knew what a name meant when they named their kid, then that kid would turn out the exact opposite of what their name meant. Apparently where he grew up everyone knows what every name means. If you name a kid “courage” they’ll be a coward. If you name a kid “virtue” they’ll be a jerk.
Later I learned his girlfriend’s name meant “chastity”.
I've been told my origional last name, Israel, means "one who fought with God and won." I think that means fought alongside god, but I've always interpreted it the other way, one who fought against the ultimate authority and won.
Actually, it’s fought “with”. Here’s the story from Genesis 32. Kind of a supernatural wrestling match.
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." 27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”
So it is the meaning I’ve always pretended it had. Excellent.
I was named Victoria Estelle after my great-great-grandmother, Estella Victoria. Victoria is just the female version of Victor. I think the concept of that is pretty lame. Estelle means “star” referring to the star followed by the three wise men in the Bible. My maiden name means “Lover of Horses”.
To me, the literal meaning of a name is less important than it’s history. In Elizabethan England there were about five girl’s names and five boy’s names in use because everyone was a named after a grandparent, parent or other relative. I think a good name grounds someone in a specific time and place. Civilized names can (but increasingly don’t) ground someone in their family history, but not to their place.
“Jason” is a Greek name meaning “Healer”
“Earl” has the same root as the Anglo-Saxon eorl or jarl, meaning “noble,” but with more connotations of a chief-like nobility, rather than a king-like nobility, e.g., more attained than ascribed.
“Godesky” is a thoroughly bastardized name, but appears to have ultimately meant something like “Good man.”
I parse this as, “The good man is a noble healer.” I take it to be more injunction than description. 