Christian Boy Names Starting With N: Nathan or Nathanael, and Is Saint Nicholas in the Bible?

Are Nathan, Nathanael and Nathaniel the same name or the same man?

No. Behind the Name derives Nathan from the Hebrew Natan, "he gave", and Nathanael from the Hebrew Netan'el, "God has given", so the longer name adds El, the Hebrew word for God, to the verb of the shorter one.

Nathaniel is not a third name. Behind the Name lists it as a variant of Nathanael and notes that it became the most popular English spelling, even though most versions of the New Testament print Nathanael.

The names also belong to different men. The Bible gives Nathan to at least two men and Nathanael to a third, and the table matches each spelling to its bearer.

Nathan the prophet confronts King David over his adultery with Bathsheba and the death of Uriah, and in 2 Samuel 12:7 he tells the king, "You are the man!" Behind the Name adds that the same prophet later championed Solomon as David's successor.

The second Nathan is David's own son. 2 Samuel 5:14 lists him among the sons born in Jerusalem, directly before Solomon, and Behind the Name names Bathsheba as his mother.

Luke's genealogy of Jesus runs through this son: Luke 3:31 reads "son of Nathan, son of David".

Of the four Gospels, only John names Nathanael. In John 1:45-46 Philip tells him they have found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about, Jesus of Nazareth, and Nathanael answers, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Jesus calls him "truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit" and says he saw him under the fig tree (John 1:47-48).

In John 1:49, three verses after doubting Nazareth, Nathanael replies, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

John 21:2 places "Nathanael of Cana in Galilee" among the disciples at the lakeside after the resurrection, which gives the name a home town.

Behind the Name calls Nathanael "probably another name" of the apostle Bartholomew, an identification no verse states.

The Old Testament also has several minor men with the Hebrew name Netan'el. Behind the Name notes that English Bibles usually print them as Nethanel or Nethaneel, which is why a search for Nathanael in the Old Testament finds the name under those spellings.

Is Saint Nicholas in the Bible, or only Nicolaus the deacon?

Saint Nicholas is not in the Bible, but his name is. Acts 6:5 lists "Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch" as the last of the seven men chosen with Stephen, and Nicolaus is the same Greek name, Nikolaos, that English spells Nicholas.

Behind the Name gives the meaning of Nikolaos as "victory of the people", from the Greek nike, "victory", and laos, "people".

The Saint Nicholas of later devotion is a different man who lived about three centuries after Acts. The Catholic Encyclopedia makes him Bishop of Myra in Lycia and says he died on 6 December in 345 or 352.

Neither Behind the Name nor the Catholic Encyclopedia connects the bishop to the deacon. The two men share a Greek name, and no source cited here says the bishop was named after the man in Acts.

Nicholas of Myra was a real bishop, but little else about him is secure. The Catholic Encyclopedia says there is "scarcely anything historically certain about him except that he was Bishop of Myra in the fourth century".

His legend fills that gap with a birth at Parara in Lycia, prison under Diocletian, release under Constantine and a seat at the Council of Nicaea. The same encyclopedia doubts the Nicaea story, because his name is missing from the old lists of bishops who attended.

Behind the Name records the best-known story, in which he saves the daughters of a poor man from lives of prostitution, and adds that the saint formed the basis for Santa Claus, a 19th-century figure created from the Dutch Sinterklaas.

In 1087, after his death, Italian merchants stole his body from Myra and took it to Bari. The Catholic Encyclopedia also calls him Nicholas of Bari, and his relics are kept in the church of San Nicola there.

Behind the Name lists Nicholas as patron saint of children, sailors and merchants, and of Greece and Russia. The Catholic Encyclopedia adds bakers and travellers to that list.

Behind the Name also credits the bishop's fame for the name's wide use among Christians.

Revelation 2:6 and 2:15 condemn the works and the teaching of the Nicolaitans, a sect about which the Catholic Encyclopedia says there is little certainty.

According to the same encyclopedia, Hippolytus named the deacon Nicolaus as the sect's founder, Clement of Alexandria cleared him, and some authors read the name as symbolic. The deacon's link to the sect is disputed in the early sources, not established.

Who were Noah, Nehemiah, Nahum and Naaman?

Genesis 6:9 introduces Noah as "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" and adds "Noah walked with God". That verse is the Bible's own description of the man, before the flood story begins.

Nehemiah 1:1 opens with "the words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah", set in the citadel of Susa. Later in his book, Nehemiah 6:15 records that Jerusalem's wall was completed in fifty-two days.

Nahum 1:1 calls his book "an oracle concerning Nineveh" and "the book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh". The name therefore points to a prophet from Elkosh whose book concerns one foreign city.

Naaman is not an Israelite. 2 Kings 5:1 calls him "commander of the army of the king of Aram" and "a mighty warrior" who "suffered from a skin disease".

He is healed after the prophet Elisha tells him to wash seven times in the Jordan (2 Kings 5:10-14).