I’m sure most of us by now are familiar with the Cain–Abel story from Judeo-Christian mythology: Adam and Eve’s first two sons are Cain, a farmer, and Abel, a shepherd. God demands a sacrifice from them; Cain offers up some lovely vegetarian fare, while Abel provides his choicest meat. God pooh-poohs Cain’s sacrifice, prompting Cain to kill Abel in a jealous rage. Cain thereby becomes the world’s first murderer, and is cursed and banished by the Man Upstairs.
One would therefore expect that, at least in the predominantly Christian Western world, naming your kid after Cain would be about as well-received as naming him after Judas Iscariot. Yet in my life I’ve met several people with the first name Cain, but not a single one named Abel. To verify that this wasn’t simply sampling error, I did name searches for “Cain” and “Abel” on the IMDB, and found that there are indeed quite a few people with the first name Cain. While there are also a lot of people named Abel, it seems almost all of them are Hispanic. Strip out everyone who has a Spanish last name or whose primary credits are for Spanish-titled films, and the Cains outnumber the Abels.
So what’s the reason for this? Do non-Spanish-speakers get off on naming their kids after famous murderers, or is there another name Cain with a different etymology? And regardless of whether Cain is the namesake, how come we don’t see more people named Abel? There are countless people out there named Adam, Eve, and Seth (their third son), so why is Abel so underrepresented, at least in the English-speaking world?
Well, as far as the Hispanic thing goes, I’m sure you’ve noticed there are a lot of Hispanic men named Jesus, but not a lot of native English-speakers with that name. So it’s just a whole different approach to naming.
A couple of reasons. In the past, *Abel * has been much more popular in English than it is now.
*Cain * (or Kane) in English isn’t necessarily the biblical name. There is a traditional Irish name, Cathán, with is the word for “battle” plus a diminutive, and it is anglicized as Kane or Cain. It also shows up as a surname, Ó Catháin and similar, which again get anglicized as variations of Kane and can become given names in families. There is also a Welsh word, cain (pronounced like kine but anglicized as Cain), meaning, “fair, bright, beautiful,” that is used in personal names.
Well, there’s Abel Tasman, but he’s Dutch. (As, on preview, **Captain Amazing ** has just pointed out…)
The Oxford Dict. of First Names says “[Abel] has not been much used either before or after its brief vogue among the Puritans.” So my impression was probably based on sources from early New England.
Checking the Social Security page of popular baby names produces interesting results. Among the top 1,000 names for children born 2004 through 1990, Abel ranks from as low as 399 to as high as 340 (1 for the most popular name and so on). Cain, on the other hand, ranks at 947 in 1997, 958 in 1996, and 901 in 1994.
I know a couple people of Ethiopian descent named Abel, though I’ve never heard of one named Cain. Ethiopian Christians commonly have a number of Bibical names that aren’t as popular in English-speaking countries.
I think its just the wax-and-wane of popularity amongst different populations that accounts for this stuff, like all names.
According to NameVoyager, Abel was the 358th most popular name given to boys in the US in 2004 (according to Social Security info). It appears to have been somewhat popular for a while (in the top 1000, at least). Cain doesn’t even show up.
The only particularly notable historical Abel I can think of was King Abel of Denmark (1218-1252). Ironically enough, he plotted the 1250 murder of his brother Erik IV.
Not that people pay attention much to the meanings of names, but I thought I would add:
In Hebrew, Abel is “Hevel” and means “vapor” or “nothingness” hence “vanity”, or something without substance.
Cain is “kayin” from the Hebrew word “koneh”, which in Biblical Hebrew means “to create” as well as its usualy modern meaning, “to purchase” or “acquire”. Eve names her first son “kayin” because, she says, “kaniti ish et Adonai” “I created a person with God”