Christian Boy Names Starting With S and the Many Men Named Simon

How many men named Simon are in the New Testament?

Nine New Testament passages give the name Simon, each in a different setting, and only two of the Simons named are apostles: Luke 6:14-15 lists "Simon, whom he named Peter" and "Simon, who was called the Zealot" among the twelve.

A boy named Simon for an apostle is therefore named for Peter or for the Zealot. Behind the Name credits Peter for the name's wide Christian use, while the Zealot's two labels, "Zealot" in Luke and "Cananaean" in Mark, describe one apostle in two Gospel lists.

Peter's own naming by Jesus is a separate question, because Simon was his name before he was called Peter.

Four more Simons appear in a single scene each: Simon of Cyrene is compelled to carry the cross, the leper and the Luke 7 host have Jesus at their table, and the tanner lodges Peter in Joppa. Simon of Samaria, who practiced magic, and Simon Iscariot, known only as the betrayer's father, are the two bearers whose stories run against the name's apostolic associations.

Silas in Acts, Silvanus in the letters

Silas and Silvanus are traditionally identified as one companion of Paul, though no verse says that Silas was also called Silvanus. Acts names the companion Silas, Paul's letters name a Silvanus who works beside Paul and Timothy, and 1 Peter 5:12 names a Silvanus through whom that letter was written.

Two reference works make the link explicit. The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Paul says that "Paul chose Silas or Silvanus, a Roman citizen like himself," and Behind the Name calls Silas "probably a short form of Silvanus."

In scripture itself the identification remains an inference, drawn from a companion who works beside Paul under one name in Acts and the other in the letters.

Timothy is a different man, since 1 Thessalonians 1:1 and 2 Corinthians 1:19 both name Silvanus and Timothy side by side. Barnabas and Paul are separate from Silas as well: Acts 15:22 sends Silas to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, and after Paul and Barnabas part company over John Mark in Acts 15:39, Paul chooses Silas in the next verse.

None of the six verses in the table mentions Luke, and nothing in them identifies Silas with him.

Behind the Name records one more possibility: Silas and Silvanus may be Greek and Latin forms of the Hebrew name Saul. That is a theory about where the name came from, and it does not make Silas the same man as Saul of Tarsus, whom Acts 15:40 names beside him as Paul.

The same entry notes that Silas was not used as an English given name until after the Protestant Reformation, and that George Eliot gave it to the title character of Silas Marner (1861).

Was Stephen the first martyr?

Christian tradition gives Stephen the title of first martyr, but Acts does not use that phrase. Behind the Name describes him as a deacon who was stoned to death and is "regarded as the first Christian martyr," which places the title in later Christian memory of his death.

Acts 6:5 introduces him as the first of seven men chosen by the community, "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit," in a list that also includes Philip and Nicolaus.

His death in Acts 7:58-60 supplies what the title rests on. While he is being stoned he prays, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," then kneels and cries out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

The NRSVUE notes that the Greek for his death reads "fell asleep." The same scene introduces the future Paul, since the witnesses lay their coats "at the feet of a young man named Saul."

The name comes from Greek Stephanos, "crown, wreath," according to Behind the Name, which also credits Saint Stephen for making the name common among Christians.

Seth, Samson and King Saul come with loss and failure in their stories

Seth's name answers a death. In Genesis 4:25 Adam's wife says, "God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him," and the NRSVUE note connects Seth with the Hebrew word for "appointed."

Samson's story begins with blessing: an angel announces his birth to his mother, and Judges 13:24 says, "The boy grew, and the Lord blessed him."

His later story turns on betrayal. In Judges 16 Samson tells Delilah the secret of his strength after the Philistine rulers have offered her money for it, and she has his hair cut.

King Saul, Israel's first king, is recalled in Acts 13:21 as "Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years."

His reign also includes the night in 1 Samuel 28:6-7 when "the Lord did not answer him, not by dreams or by Urim or by prophets," and Saul sends for a medium at Endor.

Sebastian and Sylvester: what comes from history and what from tradition

Sebastian comes from the Latin Sebastianus, "from Sebaste," a city in Asia Minor whose name derives from Greek sebastos, "venerable," according to Behind the Name.

The same entry presents the saint's story as Christian tradition. In that account he was a third-century Roman soldier martyred under Diocletian, shot with arrows and left alive, healed by Irene of Rome, and then beaten to death after he returned to rebuke the emperor.

Sylvester is a medieval variant of Silvester and is now the usual English spelling. Silvester is a Latin name meaning "wooded, wild," from silva, "wood, forest."

Three popes bore the name, including Silvester I, who "supposedly" baptized Constantine the Great. That word marks the baptism story as tradition, while the three popes named Silvester are the part Behind the Name states without qualification.