TOBIAS male Biblical, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English, Biblical Latin, Biblical Greek Greek form of TOBIAH. This is the name of the hero of the apocryphal Book of Tobit, which appears in many English versions of the Old Testament. It relates how Tobit's son Tobias, with the help of the angel Raphael, is able to drive away a demon who has plagued Sarah, who subsequently becomes his wife. This story was popular in the Middle Ages, and the name came into occasional use in parts of Europe at that time. In England it became common after the Protestant Reformation. | ||||||||||||||||||||
TOBIAH male Biblical From the Hebrew name טוֹבִיָּה (Toviyyah) which meant "YAHWEH is good". This was the name of an Ammonite in the Book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament. | ||||||||||||||||||||
YAHWEH male Theology A name of the Hebrew God, represented in Hebrew by the tetragrammaton ("four letters") יהוה (Yod Heh Vav Heh), which was transliterated into Roman script as Y H W H. Because it was considered blasphemous to utter the name of God, it was only written and never spoken, which resulted in the original pronunciation becoming lost. The name may have originally been derived from the old Semitic root הוה (hawah) meaning "to be" or "to become". |