What's in a name?

Juan Cole today has a roundup of American names with Semitic roots, like Barack Hussein Obama, General Omar Nelson Bradley, and Benjamin Franklin.  Cole warns that denigrating Obama's name "is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!" He points out that fourteen of our 42 presidents have had Semitic names, such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln. Other notables on the list include General John Abizaid, Congressman Darrell Issa and former cabinet secretary Donna Shalala.  

First, the meaning of Barack:

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. It is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed (barak) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

As for "Hussein":

It is from the Semitic word, hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.  Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel, The Kite Runner, is Khaled Hosseini.

General Omar Bradley:

Omar is an alternative spelling of Umar, i.e. Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Sunni Islam. Presumably General Bradley was named for the poet Omar Khayyam, who bore the caliph's name. Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, in the "translation" of Edward FitzGerald, became enormously popular in Victorian America.  Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the second Caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-Day and Normandy, of the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr.

Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander; Darrell Issa and Donna Shalala:

Abizaid, Issa and Shalala are Arabic names. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name.   "Isa" means Jesus and Shalala means "waterfall".

Benjamin Franklin, whose first name is from the Hebrew:

Bin Yamin, the son of the Right (hand), or son of strength, or the son of the South (yamin or right has lots of connotations). The "Bin" means "son of," just as in modern colloquial Arabic. Bin Yamin Franklin is not a dishonorable name because of its Semitic root. By the way, there are lots of Muslims named Bin Yamin.

John Adams:

John Adams really only had Semitic names. His first name is from the Hebrew Yochanan, or gift of God, which became Johan and then John. (In German and in medieval English, "y" is represented by "j" but was originally pronounced "y".) Adams is from the biblical Adam, which also just means "human being." In Arabic, one way of saying "human being" is "Bani Adam," the children of men.

Thomas Jefferson:

Thomas Jefferson's first name is from the Aramaic Tuma, meaning "twin." Aramaic is a Semitic language spoken by Jesus, which is related to Hebrew and Arabic. In Arabic twin is tau'am, so you can see the similarity.

Abraham Lincoln:

Abraham Lincoln, of course is, named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham,. Abu, "father of," is a common element in Arab names today.

James Madison, etc:

James Madison, James Monroe and James Polk all had a Semitic first name, derived from the Hebrew Ya?aqov or Jacob, which is Ya`qub in Arabic. It became Iacobus in Latin, then was corrupted to Iacomus, and from there became James in English."

Juan Cole concludes by hoping that our next president will be "a blessed and good one."

Obama's first two names mean "Blessing, the Good." If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.