Graph of Daniel vs time: https://rowzero.io/workbook/CA82F353F7060CA9411A12EB

And, for those who enjoy historical primary sources, Damn, Daniel, 2016 CE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfFcyTuopbI

because of the date, i'm gonna let this pass

Might be nice to adjust per-capita if that information is available.

That was fun and very much in the spirit of Hacker News.

I also approve of this.

As do I.

You don't

Дон’т јоу ај.

Word of caution on giving children “interesting” or cute names - my father’s legal first name was a variation on “daniel” (a common nickname) and since his passing and becoming the executor of what little was left of his estate, I was astounded at how many stupid issues he had with credit reports and even dumb things like utility bills incorrectly “correcting” his name to Daniel.

I never understood why people do that in the first place. Sure, call your son Billy but putting William in the documents doesn't hurt.

Those, and even worse the “cute” spelling variations on normal names, are baffling to me. You’ve just condemned your kid to a lifetime of minor (and sometimes more-than-minor) hassles, with very little justification.

[edit] I actually think a lot of “bad” celebrity kid names are a ton better than that crap. At least with “Apple” and “Rocket” folks can guess the correct spelling nearly 100% of the time.

I dunno, I have a pretty weird name from before it became a fad. I’ve enjoyed the benefit of things like instructors remembering my name. It is small but a nice perk. Not sure if it would apply now that everyone has a weird name.

Also if your name gets autocorrected maybe it’ll throw the data aggregators off your scent.

This is my pet peeve about Duke and Duchess of Sussex naming their kids “Archie” and “Lilibet”.

Even Harry’s birth name is “Henry” — Archie’s middle name “Harrison” is clever though.

I don't think those kids will have to worry about credit ratings agencies or bureaucracy

Credit agencies will screw anything up. My wife and her mother shared the same first name with a different middle name, whose first letter happened to be one off.

20 years after her name changed, they both had issues with messed up records. It got bad when insurance carriers got it jumbled up.

As the father of a son named Daniel, I found this fascinating. Thanks!

I think I agree with the comment in the conclusion that Torah names are used by non-Jews when a Christian comes across the name. But I don't think in this case it's because of the supposed prophecies about Jesus but because the stories about Daniel in the Book of Daniel are memorable. I remember hearing about "Daniel in the Lion's Den" and Daniel sitting in flames in church and in my Children's Bible stories.

But I chose the name for my son not (directly) because of its religious significance but because it's a normal, known name, in both English and Spanish. That is, neither a WASP American or a Mexican will really bat an eye at it. As a Hispanic American, that's something I've appreciated about my own name, Gabriel (and would love a historical deep dive on that name!). I couldn't really find any other names like that.

> I remember hearing about "Daniel in the Lion's Den" and Daniel sitting in flames in church and in my Children's Bible stories.

Minor nitpick, but it was Daniel's three friends who were thrown into the furnace, not Daniel himself.

They are both indeed memorable stories.

Shad’rach, Me’shach, and Abed’nego were thrown into the fiery furnace if I remember correctly. (Please forgive any spelling variations)

Or Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, to use their less well known Hebrew names.

Or Shakeyourbed, Makeyourbed and Uptobedyougo, according to some children's classes...

Having grown up with VeggieTales, I still find myself defaulting to "Rack, Shack, and Benny."

You might like this site, which gives name overlaps between two languages: https://mixedname.com/english_spanish_masculine_names

That Venn diagram showing a child coming out from center of two round overlapping circles might be not the best choice, especially when pink color circles are at play when looking for feminine names :-)

P.S. A bit of noise in the data too, some names in Polish/English pairs are not really good.

Maybe it's intentional, and made by people who are not embarrassed to know where babies come from.

Gabriel also appears in both the Hebrew scriptures (in the Ketuvim, which only names two angels) and the Gospels, being both the angel who explains Daniel's visions to him, and involved in the revelations for the births of both Jesus and John the Baptist.

Is Michael (or it s cognate) at all common as a name in Mexico? That's a figure that is at least as prominent as Gabriel across the Abrahamic religions (in particular the prominent inclusion in the Leonine Prayers keep it a popular name in many Roman Catholic regions).

> Michael (or it s cognate) at all common as a name in Mexico

That would be Miguel.

Right; I feel stupid now.

Unlike Gabriel or Daniel it's spelled differently. This removes the "resume friendly" aspect of the name that those have.

David, Leonardo, Sebastian? (just going off baby name sites; wonder what ads I'll be seeing for the next few weeks?)

There was a line in To Kill a Mockingbird about being named for a Confederate general leading to slow, steady, drinking, but when I looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Civil_War_gen... they have the WASP standards: British kings, Other kings, Biblical.

(they also don't [from looking at A-C] seem to have the <ancestral name> <everyday name> <family name> triad that was common in certain parts of the US during my youth)

As a father of a daughter named Claudia, it has that property as well, although that doesn't help you since you have a son.

Gabriel is a conjunction of gabri- (heroic man), and -el (god), roughly translating to "man of God". -el is just a generic proto-semitic word for god that long predates any sort of written language. gabri- is likely related to a well known Aramean king named Gabbār, documented in the Kilamuwa stela alongside his (honorable) god Ba'al SMD. It's entirely possible that there's some recursive etymology here though, as is common with dynastic names.

The story of Daniel killing the dragon with hair cakes is also pretty good: https://biblehub.com/catholic/daniel/14-26.htm

A fun article!

I think a more probable understanding of the "Daniel" reference in Ezekiel is that it is same Daniel from the book of Daniel.

Even if you assume that the prophecies in the book of Daniel were written retroactively 600 years later (given the accuracy of described events) it does not preclude an actual powerful person of that name being alive at same time as Ezekiel, and being the basis for later attribution.

Both Ezekiel and Daniel are written covering a similar set of years. Both refer to a person named Daniel widely famous for his "righteousness". It would seem improbable that they were talking about entirely different people.

Again, had a lot of fun reading that.

On what grounds do you consider it more likely that an historical person rather than the book of Ezekiel inspired the author of the book of Daniel to use the name? How do you explain the lack of other texts about this person if he was that popular and important?

> How do you explain the lack of other texts about this person if he was that popular and important?

On the contrary, based on the linked article, it seems that there are several works of literature from the time referencing Daniel. In fact, for some languages, it appears that close to 100% of known writing samples reference Daniel (because there are only one or two examples).

Oh, this is really cool. As a "Daniel" myself, I really appreciate the background story of my name.

Sometimes, it's also interesting to get to know the story of how someone got their name. When my mum was younger, there was a really cute little boy my mum really liked when she was on vacation with my grandparents. Not in a romantic way, as he was, like, still a small kid. And she then decided that, when I was born in '86, I should receive his name. I found this super cute, and It's one of those stories that will always remind me of my mum.

My wife's grandparents on her father's side were Swedish immigrants to the USA, but her father has never known much at all about the Swedish background. A few years ago my wife got really into the ancestry.com thing, and after doing some digging, discovered that her father's first name is what his family's last name was in Sweden, up until migrating to America. While they took on a different, common last name as many did back then, they passed the old name on in their son. I thought this was fascinating, and so did he, as he never knew any of this, either!

Just another Daniel born in '86 sharing an interesting name origin story. (My own isn't as wild -- my mother loved the Elton John song.)

> My own isn't as wild -- my mother loved the Elton John song.

I really like both stories! :)

For relatively detailed information on the Ugaritic "Danel" and his relation to the Book of Ezekiel, see his Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danel

Anyone know of any theories regarding the naming of the robot Daneel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Daneel_Olivaw

Oh wow, don’t encounter Lichtheim too often on most parts of the Web!

There’s a third volume, too. Nb they were released far enough apart that later volumes contain errata for earlier ones (like calling out fraudulent or mistaken dates on some of the works, which errors weren’t discovered until after the volume was printed)

I’ve read them cover to cover. Tried that with single-volume collections of Akkadian and Sumerian literature, but they were way harder to follow—too fragmentary, too little context. Didn’t finish either.

Gilgamesh is amazing though, and easily the best pre-Homeric work I’ve read, zero competitors are even close.

Nonsense, the Mahabharata is definitely a fantastic epic written around 1500BC. Definitely far superior to the Iliad.

I'm not sure how much evidence there is that the actual text of the Mahabharata is anywhere near that old.

Wikipedia says

> The bulk of the Mahābhārata was probably compiled between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, with the oldest preserved parts not much older than around 400 BCE. [1]

The actual events that it was based on are older. The same article says that the Kurukshetra war was probably around 1000 BCE, and that there may have been events referenced that are older than that.

I don't know that there is accepted evidence that it was written much before 400 BCE, though.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

I haven’t made it to the short list (not just one entry!) of Indian works that, by reputation, may been in that same very-good category :-)

I have read a lot more literature from before 1000 BC than most people have, though. That’s just one big blind spot for me, so far.

As someone named Daniel it is really nice that it is a common name in most European languages and never deviates in spelling. Please people give your children the most boring name possible.

Also, and not claiming there is any cause/effect but there is a correlation, at least for men, between short, common names and career success. C-level individuals tend to have short, one-syllable names (or nicknames) like Jack, Fred, Tim, Don, etc.

Plenty of others have names like that, all the way "down" to the trades.

The cause and effect is most likely that upper-middle class and upper class white WASP families overwhelmingly tend to prefer those simple boy names.

I think this might be an anglophone thing. In at least a number of other cultures, you wouldn't use nicknames for figures of authority, and one-syllable names are uncommon in general.

> ...never deviates in spelling.

In South Slavic languages it's spelled Danijel as well (same pronunciation).

oh first time I heard of a different spelling for Daniel, but at least in all the countries I need to do business in it is the same spelling.

As a fellow Daniel, the spelling doesn't deviate much but the diminutives do.

I live in Mexico and it's Dani here and in many Spanish speaking countries. I go by Dan and that form is pretty much never used so it causes a lot of confusion.

Cool post regardless.

The spelling is important so people don't get it wrong when they have to write it down. It can be a bureaucratic nightmare to get this kind of thing fixed sometimes.

For example my birth certificate had a typo in my dad's last name and when I was getting my first ID card I had to go to the notary to get the birth certificate typo fixed before getting the ID card issued. Took half a day of work...

Apparently my parents didn't know what to name me for about a week and eventually settled on Daniel, in this spelling it was a very unusual name in Soviet Union at the time. I think they liked some famous polish actor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Olbrychski.

A more slavic spelling of this is Danilo but it was even less popular than Daniel.

I knew only one other Daniel and he was a son of family's friends and apparently named after me. I didn't much care for him, but that's beside the point.

Coming to USA and it was a bit sad to no longer have a very unique name. It's okay though, my last name is very unique...

My mum said she named me after Elton Johns song 'Daniel' - Rumoured to be his long lost gay lover. Thanks mum.

Lyricist Taupin said that the story intends to be about a man, returning to a small-town after the war, who longs to return to the life he had before.

https://americansongwriter.com/daniel-by-elton-john-and-bern...

I was recently reading in Daniel. Christians like the book of Daniel for its character examples and prophecies. A few examples.

1. The Babylonians took their young people, indoctrinated them into the culture, and tried to turn them against their old one. This happens today in colleges across America.

2. Daniel shows God expects us to be faithful in the little things. They were willing to die over something many people might not care about. They knew God cared (eg Luke 16:10). He blessed their obedience.

3. In Daniel 2, all the wise men, enchanters, magicians, and astrologers failed to interpret the dream. Their world is full of fake people conning others. Matt. 24 and 2 Pet. 2 discuss the false prophets that are everywhere today. Having the real gift, Daniel was able to give an interpretation with a huge impact. This happened to a friend and I doing evangelism last Saturday. The stranger admitted that was the first time an interpretation of his dream made sense with external corroboration. All I can say on that.

4. Daniel’s righteousness at work is both a blessing to his employer and reflects God’s character to others. Eventually, the only thing they can do to take him down is making his prayers illegal. Things like that happen today, too.

5. We see the powerful people trying to be gods. Nebuchadnezzar even puts up an image others are forced to worship. He will harm those who don’t believe. Both Jews and Christians have a long history of people killing them for their faith, esp Nazis and Communists. Recently, China ejected all the Christian missionaries and the ruler is putting his image on churches like he is a god. History repeats.

6. God delivers them from the fire. His presence is also with them in some way while they’re suffering. Those who repent and put faith in Jesus Christ have God’s Spirit in them even when suffering. In some cases, we’re delivered from our enemies or suffering. One boss that set up a group of us unjustly for firing cancelled the writeups. We prayed for help, gangsters randomly shot a family member, and they had to cancel work load to make the wake. Wow… (I’ve also seen more than one miracle healing, including my own PTSD and liver issues.)

7. Prophecies. Atheists demand proof that God’s Word has power, like fulfilled prophecies. God’s Word delivers them in Daniel. Then, atheists claim that would be impossible so they must be after the fact. They don’t have evidence because they don’t allow it.

Anyone interested in Daniel’s prophecies can look at these:

https://www.gotquestions.org/Daniel-four-beasts.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/prophecy-2300-days-Daniel.html

Side note on Baal which I saw in the article. God blessed or punished nations based on if they followed Him and acted right. Nations He destroyed turned to idols (esp Baal’s), sexual immorality (pleasure culture), oppression of the poor, and (esp Baal’s) sacrificing their own children for prosperity. All of this is repeating in America after people turned away from Christ. The wrath will, too, if they don’t repent.

What I find most interesting in the origin of the name is the theological context, "Daniel" => Judged by God, indiicating a theological conception that people are accountable to God for their behaviour. Compare this to Greek naming. Even from a slightly later period "Herakles" => Fame of Hera. A different relationship to their god(s).

Really cool article. I'm not sure about one point, though.

> In the Torah, both Noah and Job are treated as pious men, but critically, neither are Israelites. Making Daniel part of the trio implies he was also a righteous non-Jew.

Doesn't this confuse being Israelite with being Jewish? IIRC, the kingdom of Israel predates the Jewish religion by a few hundred years, based on older archaeological references to the kingdom's name from neighboring kingdoms.

>clay tablets are expensive

That's not the first time I hear that. Still can't figure out why it was true.

It wasn't.

Clay tablets were not expensive- all you had to do was walk down to the riverbank and grab some clay. What may have been expensive was the services of scribes to write and read those clay tablets- and as they were heavier than papyrus or vellum, moving and storing them was also expensive.

So there was no mass-market literature- that had to wait for printing. What survives are sacred texts, administrative records, and letters related to government or business (like the infamous complaint letter to Ea-Nasir).

But because clay is much cheaper than parchment or even papyrus, what also survives- which doesn't survive in anything like as similar numbers from cultures that wrote on parchment/papyrus AFAIK- is scribal students' exercises, because clay was so easy to get that they would just throw away their completed exercises and pick up a new tablet rather than recycle them.

(One important exception here is birchbark- at Novgorod, in the middle of a vast birch forest, birchbark was almost as cheap as clay in Mesopotamia. So medieval children's doodles [0] on it have survived. Another is papyrus written by the Jewish community of Cairo, who had a religiously-motivated aversion to throwing away or erasing anything written. [1])

This means that we have a lot of copies of the beginning of texts written on clay, as students would copy them out for practice. In contrast, if a text was written on parchment, the middle is more likely to survive as it was less exposed to pests and the elements.

[0] https://lithub.com/onfim-wuz-here-on-the-unlikely-art-of-a-m...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Geniza

There was some old Irish American song I heard that included the lines "Some think it a misfortune to be christened Pat or Dan/But to me it is an honor to be called an Irishman."

I suppose that Daniel O'Connell's fame could have accounted for the popularity of the name among the Irish.