Samuel

שְׁמוּאֵל

• Gender: Male
• Origin: Biblical English
• Meaning: name of God

• Samuel was the great prophet and judge who anointed both Saul and David as kings of Israel, shaping the entire course of Jewish history. His mother Hannah's prayer for a child is one of the most moving passages in the Bible, making his very existence a story of answered longing and devotion. That combination of prophetic weight and deeply personal origin gives Samuel a richness that few names can match.

  Samuel has never really gone out of style, and that consistency is part of its appeal. Jewish actor Liev Schreiber chose it for his son, and it remains a fixture on baby name lists year after year. The built-in nickname options — Sam, Sammy, even Shmuel for a nod to the original Hebrew — give it remarkable flexibility. It is the kind of name that sounds just as natural on a toddler as on a Supreme Court justice, with enough biblical weight to anchor a child in tradition.

• Alternate Spellings: N/A
• Hebrew Equivalent:
  Shmuel
• Potential Sibling Name:
  Sarah
  ,
  Miriam
  ,
  Isaac
  ,
  Michael
• Theme: God