Etymology
The root meaning and origin of the name Bethany has been the subject of much scholarship and debate. William Hepworth Dixon devotes a multi-page footnote to it in his The Holy Land (1866), largely devoted to debunking the meaning "house of dates," which is attributed to Joseph Barber Lightfoot by way of a series of careless interpretative mistakes. Dixon quotes at length a refutation of Lightfoot's thesis in the form of a letter by Emanuel Deutsch of the British Museum, who notes that neither the name Bethany, nor any of the roots suggested by Lightfoot, appear anywhere in the Talmud. Deutsch suggests a non-Hebrew root, a word transcribed in Syriac script whose meaning he gives as "House of Misery" or "Poor-house."
This theory as to Bethany's etymology, which was eventually also adopted by Gustav Dalman in 1905, is not without challengers. For example, E. Nestle's Philologica Sacra (1896) suggests that Bethany is derived from the personal name Anaiah, while others have suggested it is a shortened version of Ananiah, a village of Bethel mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah (11:32). Since Greek can neither reproduce an 'h' sound nor the Hebrew harsh 'ch' sound (cheth) in the middle of a word, a derivation from the personal name Chananya ("Yah has been gracious") is also possible. Another suggestion, arising from the presence of nearby Bethphage ("house of unripe figs"), is that its name comes from beit hini, meaning "house of figs".
Deutsch's thesis, however, seems to also be attested to by Jerome. In his version of Eusebius' Onomasticon, the meaning of Bethany is defined as domus adflictionis or "house of affliction." Brian J. Capper writes that this is a Latin derivation from the Hebrew beth 'ani or more likely the Aramaic beth 'anya, both of which mean "house of the poor" or "house of affliction/poverty," also semantically speaking "poor-house." Capper concludes, from historical sources as well as this linguistic evidence, that Bethany may have been the site of an almshouse.
According to Capper and Deutsch before him, there are also linguistic difficulties that arise when the Anaiah/Ananiah, "house of figs" or "house of dates" theses are compared against the bethania form used in Greek versions of the New Testament. Additionally, the Aramaic beit 'anya is the form used for Bethany in Christian Palestinian and Syriac versions of the New Testament. Given this, and Jerome's familiarity with Semitic philology and the immediate region, Capper concludes that the "house of affliction" / "poor-house" meaning as documented by Jerome and in the Syriac New Testament usage is correct, and that this meaning relates to the use of the village as a centre for caring for the sick and aiding the destitute and pilgrims to Jerusalem.
It may be possible to combine the Ananiah (as a personal name) and "house of the poor" derivations, since the shortening of Ananiah ("Yah has intervened") to Anya is conceivable though unattested (cf. the common shortening of Yochanan to Choni), whence a typical semitic wordplay might arise between Anya as a shortening of the personal name within the name of the village and as Aramaic for "poor". Such a wordplay may have served the choice of the village as the location for an almshouse.
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