Does the popularity of Jewish names in 1st century Palestine match that of Jewish names in the New Testament?

  • The question

    There is a surprised man standing above a graph labeled "Names". The left and right sides of the graph are exactly equal.

    We see many names of characters in the 4 Gospels and Acts (the historical works in the New Testament), and we likewise have thousands of names catalogued from tombs etc. that date to 1st century Palestine. In comparing these two data sets, do the name frequencies in the Gospels match the patterns and frequencies we see from that onomastic evidence of 1st century Palestine?

  • Historians

    • Richard Bauckham: “Onomastics (the study of names) is a significant resource for assessing the origins of Gospel traditions. The evidence in this chapter shows that the relative frequency of the various personal names in the Gospels corresponds well to the relative frequency in the full database of three thousand individual instances of names in the Palestinian Jewish sources of the period. [Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2008), 84.]
“Yes, after all…

  • The commonest names are equally so in Gospels

    In AD 30 Palestine, 15.6% of men bore one of the 2 most popular male names (Simon or Joseph). Compare: In the Gospels and Acts, it is similar: 18.2%.

    1. As a quick note about the data on women…
      • Richard Bauckham: “The percentages for men in the New Testament thus correlate remarkably closely with those for the population in general. It is not surprising that the percentages for women do not match those for the population in general nearly as closely. The statistical base for women’s names is considerably smaller than that for men, both in the New Testament and in the sources in general.” [Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2008), 72.]
      • 28.6% of women bore one of the two most popular female names. This is relevant because in the Gospels, it is similar: 38.9%
      • 49.7% of women bore one of the 9 most popular female names. This is relevant because in the Gospels, it is similar: 61.1%
      • 9.6% of women bore a name that is attested only once in our sources. This is relevant because in the Gospels, it is similar: 2.5%”

  • The nine commonest names are equally so in Gospels

    In AD 30 Palestine, 41.5% of men bore one of the 9 most popular male names. Compare: in the Gospels & Acts, it is similar: 40.3%

  • Palestine’s rarer names are equally rare in Gospels

    In AD 30 Palestine, 7.9% of men bore a name that is attested only once in our sources. Compare: in the Gospels & Acts, it is similar: 3.9%

  • Palestine’s Greek names equally frequent

    In AD 30 Palestine, 12.3% of names found in Palestine at this time are Greek. Compare: in the Gospels & Acts it is similar (among Palestinian Jews in the New Testaiment): 18.1%.