Everyday LifeGreek → English
Jerome
/dʒəˈroʊm/noun
A male given name.
The Greek roots
ἱερός
hierós
sacred, holy
ὄνομα
ónoma
name
Literally: “sacred name”
The story of the word
Ἱερώνυμος was a Greek name centuries before Christianity, borne by a historian of Sicily among others. The man who fixed it in Europe was Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, who spent decades in a cell near Bethlehem turning the Bible into the Latin that became the Vulgate. Hieronymus wore down through Old French into Jerome; the Italian Girolamo and Spanish Jerónimo are the same name taking different routes.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
Same family
hierarchyhieroglyphonomatopoeiasynonym
In a sentence
Jerome is usually painted with a lion, a skull and a very untidy desk.