# Sara in Greek? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538 "2004-04-12T01:48:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![High\_Cheese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8797f3/32.png) [@High\_Cheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/High_Cheese)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/1 "2004-04-12T01:48:05Z")
What is the Greek equivilant of the popular english name of Sara? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/2 "2004-04-12T02:04:23Z")
In New Testament Greek, it was spelled (transliterated, of course) “Sarra.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/3 "2004-04-12T02:30:15Z")
In Greek there can be no final -h, therefore [symbol]Sara[/symbol]. **Earl** , did you really mean to type a double r, or did your finger stutter on the keyboard? Note: In Vulgate Latin, and therefore Italian, Spanish, etc: Sara. In KJV English: Sara **h**. The reason for adding the final -h was the KJV translators went back to the original Hebrew and found that the name was written with the Hebrew equivalent of h at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/4 "2004-04-12T02:31:18Z")
Whoops, that should be Sara **h**. Sorry about the bungled coding. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/5 "2004-04-12T03:37:17Z")
Here’s a nitpick: Does the name Sara even occur in the New Testament at all? Or did you mean Old Testament Greek (the Septuagint)? ---
**Author:** ![ragerdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d07c76/32.png) [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/6 "2004-04-12T04:00:31Z")
The KJV represents the name two ways: “Sarah” in the OT and “Sara” in the NT, reflecting the underlying languages. They did this with many other names, too. Her name appears in the NT as Sarra. She is mentioned in Rom. 14:9, 9:9, Heb. 11:11, and 1 Pet. 3:6. ---
**Author:** ![ragerdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d07c76/32.png) [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/7 "2004-04-12T04:11:17Z")
By the way, the Septuagint has Sara for “Sarai” and Sarra for “Sarah.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/8 "2004-04-13T00:38:10Z")
So how did that extra r get in there? How to explain the discrepancy between Sarai and [symbol]Sara[/symbol], and between Sara and [symbol]Sarra[/symbol]? It looks linguistically anomalous. The change of Hebrew _Sarai_ to _Sarah_ involved the substitution of the letter _heh_ for the original final _yod_. The Septuagint ignores that, instead showing the change by inserting an extra [symbol]r[/symbol] _rho_ instead. The Kabbalists look at the numerical totals of the letters and find a pattern. As Abram changed to Abraham, he added an extra letter _heh_ in the middle of his name. This adds a numerical value of 5. Sarai’s letter _yod_ is 10, so changing it to a _heh_ means subtracting 5. It’s as though 5 was taken from her name and given to her husband. As though they spilt the 10 evenly between them. The Greek spelling discards this pattern for a completely different one. I wonder what the Septuagint authors were thinking. It just doesn’t add up. Jomo “always the etymologist” Mojo P.S. How does the Septuagint show the change of Abram to Abraham in Greek, since Greek can’t have h in the middle of a word? ---
**Author:** ![ragerdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d07c76/32.png) [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/9 "2004-04-13T03:16:57Z")
> [@Jomo Mojo](#): > > P.S. How does the Septuagint show the change of Abram to Abraham in Greek, since Greek can’t have h in the middle of a word? It’s just as one would expect. They have Abram / Abraam for Abram/Abraham. (Gen 17:5) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/10 "2004-04-13T03:57:52Z")
I’ve never heard of any Greeks named Abraam, and no wonder, 'cause you have to admit it just looks weird without the h. A name to avoid if you’re Greek. So how did that extra r get added to Sara? It’s an etymological anomaly. Based on the usual Hebrew -\> Greek adaptations, one would expect the Sarai -\> Sarah change to be reflected in Greek as [symbol]Sarai -\> Sara[/symbol], not the strange way it actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![ragerdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d07c76/32.png) [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/11 "2004-04-13T04:04:18Z")
Well, Abraham isn’t a good Greek name to begin with! However, the NT consistently has him as Αβραάμ. Maybe the LXX translators had some special convention from transliterating certain letters, the significance of which is now lost to us. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2004, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/12 "2004-04-13T11:09:17Z")
I meant that after the Greeks went Christian, a lot of them started using, you know, Bible-derived names. Iakobos, Ioannes, Bartholomeos, etc. Although, come to think of it, I don’t know how David would go into Greek, since Greek doesn’t have a v. (Yeah, I know in modern Greek the second letter of the alphabet is v, but here we’re talking about ancient Greek, which has no v.) I thought some more after my previous post, and remembered the name Aaron, which is widely used as a given name in many languages, as another example of two a’s bumping up against each other because the h in between was deleted. The original Hebrew form was Aharon. (In Arabic, the h was kept but the first a was deleted, which explains the name Harun.) Why Aaron became accepted while Abraam is never used, that’s another imponderable. I have my parents’ old copy of the late 16th-century Douay-Rheims Bible, which was translated directly from the Latin Vulgate of Jerome, It’s odd to see the different spellings of some familiar names. For one thing, a Douay name cannot end in final -h. For example, Noah is “Noe.” I can even remember, from my Catholic education as a very young child in the 1960s, reading a pre-Vatican II book for little Catholic kids that used the spelling “Noe,” which you never see anymore. When the NPR announcer Noah Adams said his name on the air, I thought he might be “Noe Adams” because the second syllable in Noah was obscured in pronunciation with the A of Adams immediately following it. Just one lingering aftereffect of a Catholic education. ---
**Author:** ![ragerdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d07c76/32.png) [@ragerdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ragerdude)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sara-in-greek/239538/13 "2004-04-14T02:26:47Z")
David is spelled Δαυιδ in the LXX and NT. However, an alternate spelling is Δαυειδ and some late mss. have Δαβιδ. Likewise, Levi is Λευι. Noah is Νωε.