What biblical boy names start with C?

Caleb (Numbers 13-14) and Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1; Ezra 1:1-2) are Old Testament men, and Cornelius (Acts 10), Clement (Philippians 4:3), Crispus (Acts 18:8) and Cleopas (Luke 24:18) are New Testament men. Christopher is not among them, because his name and legend come from later Christian use.

Christian Boy Names Starting With C, and Why Saint Christopher Left the Calendar in 1969

Christopher is not in the Bible, and the story of Saint Christopher grew out of the name itself. Behind the Name traces it to Late Greek Christophoros, "bearing Christ", a name early Christians used to say they carried Christ in their hearts.

Medieval readers took that meaning literally and told of a saint who carried the young Jesus across a river. In 1969 the Roman calendar revision under Paul VI removed him from the general calendar because his history could not be confirmed, and Catholics may still honor him.

The C names that scripture itself gives are a different kind of choice. Caleb, Clement, Crispus and Cleopas belong to believers, while Cyrus and Cornelius belong to a Persian king and a Roman officer whom the texts treat with approval.

Columba, Cuthbert and Cyril come from the early medieval church, and each has a dated record: Columba reached Iona in 563, Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, died in 687, and Cyril went to Moravia in 863.

Quick Facts

Not named in the Bible: Christopher, from Late Greek Christophoros, "bearing Christ" (Behind the Name)
1969 calendar change: Christopher removed from the general Roman calendar under Paul VI; devotion still permitted
Foreigners the texts treat with approval: Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1) and Cornelius (Acts 10:1-2)
Caleb's meaning: Most likely "dog", with "whole heart" as an alternate theory (Behind the Name)
Saints with dated records: Columba (Iona, 563), Cuthbert (died 687), Cyril (Moravia, 863)

Is Saint Christopher in the Bible, and is he still a saint?

No biblical book names Christopher, and the name itself shows why. Behind the Name derives it from Late Greek Christophoros, "bearing Christ", which early Christians used as a metaphor for carrying Christ in their hearts, so the name existed before anyone told a story about the man.

Behind the Name dates the legend to the Middle Ages, when literal readings of the name produced a saint who carried the young Jesus across a river. Historian Lawrence Cunningham, quoted in St. Anthony Messenger, says the part of the story that lasted is a man who took people across a river and "was given a name that means 'one who bears Christ.'"

How Saint Christopher's story developed
Stage	What happened	Source
Early Christian use	Christophoros, "bearing Christ", used as a metaphorical name	Behind the Name
Middle Ages	Literal readings of the name produce the story of carrying the young Jesus across a river	Behind the Name
Patron of travellers	Regarded as patron of travellers; Chaucer describes a silver "Cristofre" worn on the breast in The Canterbury Tales	Behind the Name; St. Anthony Messenger
Erasmus's objection	Erasmus argues that the cult retells the legend of Hercules	St. Anthony Messenger
1969	The calendar revision under Paul VI drops him from the general calendar because his history could not be confirmed	St. Anthony Messenger

Cunningham reads the 1969 decision as housekeeping more than a judgment on Christopher himself. "This was an attempt to get the cycle of saints into some kind of rational order," he says, and the revisers went toward saints "whose historicity was shaky."

St. Anthony Messenger adds that Christopher was downgraded even on his own feast day, July 25, because he shares it with the apostle James the Greater.

The 1969 change removed his feast from the general calendar; it did not forbid honoring him. The same article states that devotion to Christopher "is by no means a dereliction of Church law."

Why does Isaiah call the Persian king Cyrus "anointed"?

Isaiah 45:1 opens, "Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him." The prophet addresses a Persian king by name and calls him the Lord's anointed, the ruler whose conquests the Lord directs.

Ezra 1:1-2 shows what the text expects of him. In the first year of his reign, "the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia," and his proclamation says the Lord "has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem."

Behind the Name supplies the history behind both passages: Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the 6th century BC and let the captive Jews return after he conquered Babylon.

The meaning of the name is uncertain. Behind the Name traces Cyrus through Greek Kyros to Old Persian Kuruš, possibly "young" or "humiliator (of the enemy)", allows that it may be Elamite, and notes a later association with Greek kyrios, "lord".

Puritans began using Cyrus as an English name after the Reformation, according to the same source.

Who was Cornelius in Acts 10?

Acts 10:1-2 introduces Cornelius at Caesarea as "a centurion of the Italian Cohort" and "a devout man who feared God with all his household." The same verses say he gave alms generously and prayed constantly to God.

About the ninth hour he saw an angel, who told him that his prayers and alms "have come up as a memorial before God" (Acts 10:3-4).

The chapter ends with baptism, after Peter asks, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" and orders them baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:47-48).

Two foreigners the texts treat with approval
Name	Who he was	What the text says of him	Passage
Cyrus	King of Persia	Called the Lord's anointed and stirred to order a house for the Lord built at Jerusalem	Isaiah 45:1; Ezra 1:1-2
Cornelius	Centurion of the Italian Cohort at Caesarea	Devout and God-fearing with his whole household, then baptized at Peter's order	Acts 10:1-2, 47-48

The two records differ in what they say about the man himself. Isaiah and Ezra describe what God does through Cyrus, while Acts describes Cornelius's own prayer, alms and baptism, so Cornelius is the namesake whose faith the text records.

What does Caleb mean, and why does Numbers praise him?

Caleb was one of the twelve spies Moses sent into Canaan, and in Numbers 13:30 he "quieted the people before Moses" and urged them, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it."

Numbers 14:24 gives God's verdict: "my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land." Behind the Name notes that of the Israelites who left Egypt with Moses, only Caleb and Joshua lived to see the Promised Land.

The promise is kept in Joshua 14, where Caleb at 85 asks for the hill country and receives Hebron (Joshua 14:10-13).

The meaning is less settled than most name lists suggest. Behind the Name calls Hebrew kelev, "dog", the most likely source, and records an alternate theory joining kol, "whole", and lev, "heart".

A list that prints only "whole heart" is giving the less likely of the two readings, by Behind the Name's ranking. Caleb came into English use after the Reformation and was common among the Puritans, who brought it to America in the 17th century.

Is Paul's Clement the same as Pope Clement, and who were Crispus and Cleopas?

Philippians 4:3 names Clement once, among Paul's "coworkers, whose names are in the book of life." According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Origen identified him with Pope Clement I, and Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome agreed.

The same encyclopedia doubts the identification, judging that "this Clement was probably a Philippian." The name can therefore honor Paul's coworker, the pope the encyclopedia calls the first successor of Peter "of whom anything definite is known", or both, if the ancient writers were right.

Crispus was "the official of the synagogue" at Corinth and became a believer "together with all his household" (Acts 18:8). Paul later writes that he baptized none of the Corinthians "except Crispus and Gaius" (1 Corinthians 1:14), so Crispus is one of the few people Paul names as baptized by his own hand.

Cleopas is one of two disciples walking to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-18, and he is the one who asks the stranger, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?"

John 19:25 names a "Mary the wife of Clopas" at the cross. The spellings differ, and neither gospel says whether Clopas and Cleopas are the same man.

Columba, Cuthbert and Cyril: what their early records give

Catholic name lists add C saints from the early medieval church, and the Catholic Encyclopedia gives each of these three a dated record.

Columba (521-597): born at Garten in County Donegal, he landed at Iona on 12 May 563 and later worked to convert the Northern Picts. His life is told by his biographer Adamnan, who called him "angelic in appearance, graceful in speech, holy in work."
Cuthbert (about 635-687): once a soldier, he became prior and then bishop of Lindisfarne and lived for a time as a hermit on Farne Island. Bede wrote a life of him in verse, and his body, found incorrupt in 698, came to rest where Durham Cathedral now stands.
Cyril (827-869): also called Constantine, he was born at Thessalonica, invented an alphabet, and with his brother Methodius translated the Gospels and liturgical books into Slavonic. The brothers went to Moravia in 863, and Cyril died in Rome in 869.