What biblical boy names start with T?

Thaddaeus and Thomas are apostles in the Gospels, Timothy, Titus, Tychicus and Trophimus are Paul's coworkers, and Theophilus is the man Luke's Gospel and Acts are addressed to. Tobias comes from the Book of Tobit, which Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include and most Protestant Bibles print among the Apocrypha.

Is Thaddeus the same person as Judas Iscariot?

No. Luke 6:16 lists "Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot" as two different members of the Twelve, and the Judas son of James is the one who stands in Thaddaeus's place.

Christian Boy Names Starting With T: Which Apostle Was Thaddeus, and Why Thomas Was Called the Twin

Thaddeus and Judas son of James stand in the same place in the lists of the Twelve: Matthew 10:3 and Mark 3:18 name Thaddaeus, and Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13 name Judas son of James. Catholic devotion joins the two names as Saint Jude Thaddeus, an identification most Catholic commentators accept, although no list puts the two names side by side.

Thomas brings a different question, because his name means "twin" and John's Gospel says so three times. Paul's letters and Acts then add four coworkers whose names start with T: Timothy, Titus, Tychicus and Trophimus.

Two more names come with a short record each. Theophilus is the reader Luke's Gospel and Acts are addressed to, and Tobias is the son in the Book of Tobit, a book that not every Christian Bible counts as scripture.

Quick Facts

Thaddaeus in the lists: Matthew 10:3 and Mark 3:18
Judas son of James in the lists: Luke 6:16 and Acts 1:13
Thomas: Aramaic for "twin"; Greek Didymus in John 11:16, 20:24 and 21:2
Circumcised, and not: Timothy (Acts 16:3); Titus (Galatians 2:3)
From the Book of Tobit: Tobias, in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles

Thaddeus or Judas son of James: what the four apostle lists show

Every list of the Twelve names James son of Alphaeus and, within the next two places, either Thaddaeus or Judas son of James. No list contains both names, so each list has room for only one of them.

Where Thaddaeus and Judas son of James stand in the apostle lists
List	Order from James son of Alphaeus	Name in the shared place
Matthew 10:3	James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus	Thaddaeus (some manuscripts read Lebbaeus)
Mark 3:18	James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananaean	Thaddaeus
Luke 6:15-16	James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James	Judas son of James
Acts 1:13	James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James	Judas son of James (or brother of James)

Matthew and Mark put Thaddaeus straight after James son of Alphaeus, while Luke and Acts put Simon the Zealot there and Judas son of James one place later. The names around the slot do not change: Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew and James son of Alphaeus stand in all four lists.

Two notes in the NRSV Updated Edition widen the picture. At Matthew 10:3 it records that other ancient manuscripts read "Lebbaeus" or "Lebbaeus called Thaddaeus," and at Acts 1:13 it offers "Or the brother of" in place of "son of" James.

Jude and Judas are one name in Greek, so the devotional title Saint Jude Thaddeus joins the Judas of Luke and Acts to the Thaddaeus of Matthew and Mark. The Catholic Encyclopedia says most Catholic commentators identify the Jude of the New Testament letter with this Judas, "also called Thaddeus."

The same article states the result conditionally: "If this identification is proved," the letter's author was one of the Twelve. Behind the Name calls the identification likely, and the lists support it without settling it, because no list gives both names to one man.

Bartholomew cannot be the man in this place, since all four lists name him separately, beside Philip in three of them. Behind the Name says Nathanael is probably another name for Bartholomew, so the same separate listing keeps Nathanael apart from Thaddeus too.

The name itself is Greek Thaddaios, from the Aramaic name Taddai. Behind the Name gives two possible origins, an Aramaic word meaning "heart, breast" or an Aramaic form of a Greek name such as Theodore, and it does not choose between them.

Thomas, called the Twin

Thomas is the Greek form of the Aramaic name Te'oma, "twin," according to Behind the Name. John's Gospel translates it three times, introducing him as "Thomas, who was called the Twin" (John 11:16, 20:24 and 21:2), where the Greek word is Didymus.

His first words in John come when Jesus decides to go back to Judea to see Lazarus, and Thomas tells the other disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John 11:16).

The label "doubting Thomas" comes from John 20:25, where he says he will not believe unless he sees "the mark of the nails in his hands."

When Jesus appears a week later and tells him, "Put your finger here and see my hands," Thomas answers him with "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).

So the scene that produced the nickname also holds Thomas's confession, and the nickname keeps only its first half.

Later tradition adds more than John does. The apocryphal Acts of Thomas calls him Judas Thomas and even makes him the twin brother of Jesus, which the Catholic Encyclopedia gives as an example of "the extravagance of the legend."

The tradition that Thomas preached in India was widely spread, appearing in Ephraem, Ambrose and Jerome, and Behind the Name records that he was martyred there "according to tradition." The Catholic Encyclopedia still finds it difficult to give adequate support to the belief about his burial in India, and it calls the origin of the Syriac-using Christians of the Malabar coast difficult to determine.

In England, Behind the Name says, the name became very popular because of Saint Thomas Becket, the 12th-century archbishop of Canterbury and martyr. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Italian theologian, gives the name a second saint, one regarded as a Doctor of the Church.

Timothy and Titus: one circumcised, one not

Timothy and Titus, two of Paul's coworkers, differ on one point that the texts state outright. Paul had Timothy circumcised, while Titus "was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek" (Galatians 2:3).

Acts 16:1-3 introduces Timothy at Lystra as "the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek." Paul had him circumcised "because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek," and Acts gives no other reason.

Second Timothy 1:5 names his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, so one verse traces his faith through three generations.

Behind the Name derives Timothy from Greek Timotheos, "honouring God," and notes that he received two of Paul's letters. It also records the tradition that he was martyred at Ephesus.

Titus is the coworker Paul calls a Greek in Galatians and his partner in 2 Corinthians, and the letter addressed to him places him in Crete (Titus 1:5).

Timothy and Titus in Acts and Paul's letters
Point	Timothy	Titus
Family background	Jewish believing mother, Greek father (Acts 16:1)	Called "a Greek" (Galatians 2:3)
Circumcision	Circumcised by Paul "because of the Jews" in that region (Acts 16:3)	"Not compelled to be circumcised" (Galatians 2:3)
Paul's words for him	"My beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 4:17)	"My partner and coworker" (2 Corinthians 8:23)
Task Paul gives him	Sent to remind the Corinthians of Paul's ways (1 Corinthians 4:17)	Left in Crete to appoint elders (Titus 1:5)
Letters addressed to him	1 and 2 Timothy	Titus

Tychicus and Trophimus, the travellers from Asia

Acts 20:4 lists the men travelling with Paul, and two of them are "Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia." Each of them appears again in another verse that says what he did.

Tychicus is Paul's messenger in Colossians 4:7, which says he "will tell you all the news about me; he is a beloved brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord."

Trophimus is "the Ephesian" of Acts 21:29, where people who had seen him with Paul in the city "supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple." Second Timothy 4:20 adds: "Trophimus I left ill in Miletus."

Theophilus and Tobias, an addressee and a son in Tobit

Theophilus is the reader addressed as "most excellent Theophilus" at the opening of Luke's Gospel (Luke 1:3), and Acts 1:1 opens with his name again: "In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach." Luke 1:4 adds only that he had already been instructed, so the name's Christian link rests on these two addresses.

Tobias is the son in the Book of Tobit, which Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include and most Protestant Bibles print among the Apocrypha.