Can anybody give me the Hebrew/Aramaic equivalent to these (Anglified) names:
**Peter
Jason
John (or Johnathon)
Samuel
Matthew
James
Joseph
Luke
Benjamin
Saul
Gary
Ruth
Rachel
Rebecca
Steve
Eve
Mary
Richard
Michael
Jack
Jonah
Paul
Mark
Seth
Daniel
Robert
Norah
Arnold
Kathryn
Alison
Claudia**
And give the phonetics as well i.e. Simon could be Shimon or “She-mon”… etc. you get the picture. How it’s pronounced. And how it is spelt.
Apologies if any do not have equivalents.
Well some are Christian.
“PETER m English, German, Scandinavian, Biblical
Pronounced: PEE-tur
Derived from Greek petros meaning “stone”. In the New Testament Jesus gave the apostle Simon the name Cephas (meaning “stone” in Aramaic) which was translated Peter in many versions of the Bible (compare Matthew 16:18 and John 1:42).”
From http://www.behindthename.com/
That website should help you with most of the rest.
In Hebrew, I’ve always heard Rebecca being said as “Rivkah” with a short I and the “kah” like “cut.” Rachel is said like “raw-chel” with a hard ch, like Bach, and an accent on the second syllable.
Remember that the Hebrew/Aramaic alphabet is different from English. Some of the names you’ve listed are derived directly from the Hebrew or Aramaic names in the Bible, and I can give you those. But the other English names comes from some other source (for instance, from Greek, from German, from Norse, etc) and so there’s no one-to-one translation.
By analogy, you might ask what the equivalent English is for the French Jean-Pierre. You could say, “John-Peter” but have you ever heard of “John-Peterl” as a common English name (the Pope excluded)? Yet, Jean-Pierre is a common French name.
OK, so with that caveat, here goes:
Peter – It’s from Greek, not from Hebrew.
Jason – ditto
John (or Johnathon) – Yonaton
Samuel – Shmu-el
Matthew – Matti-yaw (also Mattithias and related Greek)
James – Usually from Ya-akov (also Jacob)
Joseph – Yosef
Luke – I have no idea.
Benjamin – Benyamin
Saul – Shu-el
Gary – Gershom, probably
Ruth – Root
Rachel – Rakh-el (pronounce “kh” like the “ch” in German “achtung”)
Rebecca – Riv-kah
Steve – could be anything, there’s no direct equivalent, often Shlomo (Solomon)
Eve – Khavah (pronounce “kh” like the “ch” in German “achtung”)
Mary – Miryam (Miriam), I presume
Richard – could be anything, there’s no direct equivalent, often Reuven (Reuben)
Michael – Mikh-a-el (pronounce “kh” like the “ch” in German “achtung”)
Jack – probably Ya-akov (also Jacob)
Jonah – Yonah
Paul – I have no idea
Mark – I have no idea
Seth – Set
Daniel – Dan-i-el
Robert – could be anything, there’s no direct equivalent, often Reuven (Reuben)
Norah, Arnold, Kathryn, Alison, Claudia – I have no idea, could be anything
Most Biblical names that have a J in them in English, the J came through the German where “J” is pronounced “Y”, and the original Hebrew is pretty similar if you replace the J with a Y. Hence, Yosef for Joseph, Yonah for Jonah, etc.