Names and Etymologies
His original name was Shimon or Simeon, Simon in modern English. He was later given the name Peter, a name derived from the Latin "Petrus" which is a masculinized form of the feminine petra (f) which means rock (cf. petroleum). In Greek, the same idea holds: "Πέτρος (Petros)" is derived from πέτρα (petra). The Latin word "petra" is a loanword from Greek. He has also been referred to as Simon Cephas (Greek: Σιμων Κηφᾶς Simōn Kēphas; Aramaic: Šimʻōn Kêfâ; Syriac: ܫܶܡܥܽܘܢ ܟ݁ܺܐܦ݂ܳܐ Sëmʻān Kêfâ), after his name in Hellenised Aramaic.
The English and German "Peter", the French "Pierre", the Italian "Pietro", the Spanish and Portuguese "Pedro", the Polish and Russian "Piotr" are derived from "Petrus". The pun with "rock" also works in Italian (pietra (f)), French (pierre (f)) and Portuguese (pedra (f)).
The Syriac or Aramaic word for "rock" is cephas, which became Greek: Πέτρος, also meaning "rock". He is also known as Simon Peter, Cephas (Greek: Κηφᾶς) and Kepha (Hebrew: כיפא). Both Cephas and Kepha also mean rock.
However, the Catholic theologian Rudolf Pesch argues that the Aramaic cepha means "stone, ball, clump, clew" and that "rock" is only a connotation; that the Greek petra denotes "grown rock, rocky range, cliff, grotto"; and that petros means "small stone, firestone, sling stone, moving boulder".
Read more about this topic: Apostle Peter
Famous quotes containing the words names and and/or names:
“Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, “just in case” in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“A knowledge that people live close by is,
I think, enough. And even if only first names are ever exchanged
The people who own them seem rock-true and marvelously self-sufficient.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)