| Title: | Categories of modern occurrences of the personal name type Samson |
| Author: | Ephraim Nissan |
| Publication: | Numele și numirea. Actele Conferinței Internaționale de Onomastică. Ediția a II-a: Onomastica din spațiul public actual, p. 618 |
| ISBN: | 978-606-543-343-4 |
| Editors: | Oliviu Felecan |
| Publisher: | Editura Mega, Editura Argonaut |
| Place: | Cluj-Napoca |
| Year: | 2013 |
| Abstract: | The biblical personal name Shimshōn is quite transparently a derivative of shémesh ‘sun’. And indeed, the Herculean character so named has solar features. He has, among the other things, flaws in his character, and perhaps this was a deterrent when it came to bestowing his name on a Jewish baby. It is not frequent at present in the Jewish onomasticon, but it has not been absent, either, historically. For example, in medieval France, one of the leading rabbinic authorities was Samson (Shimshon) of Sens, born c. 1150, according to Urbach (1955: 228). Samson of Sens moved to the Holy Land in 1211, along with other rabbis (Urbach 1955: 230). He was born perhaps in Falaise, where his grandfather, Rabbi Samson of Falaise, had lived (Urbach 1955: 227). The grandson bore his grandfather’s name. In a family of medieval rabbis, the biblical Samson having had a flawed character did not prevent the adoption of his name. I suggest that perhaps the presence of the personal name Sanson among the Christian population was an incentive among French Jews not to shun the name of that ancient Hebrew character. The present article traces some modern occurrences of the name type Samson, and identifies categories of occurrence. The name even occurs among bird names, in French. Moreover, one finds it among names for Walt Disney’s anthropomorphic ducks, in translation – in Spanish in particular: as the name for Grandma Duck’s tall and fat lazy farm hand Gus; “muscular” is sometimes used ironically for somebody who is fat, and after all, it is the job of Gus to carry out heavy duties on the farm, even though he would rather shirk such works and fall asleep. Bear in mind that the personal name type Samson also resulted (directly or indirectly) in names for inanimate material. Samsonite is a strong, resistant material of which suitcases are often made. The Italian name is sansonite (< Sansone). But samsonite (spelled samsonite also in Italian: Devoto and Oli 1968, s.v.) is a term used by mineralogists, for a monoclinic mineral being a sulphur of silver, manganese and antimonium. It is steel black, with metallic brightness. The mineral was so named after a mine called Samson, at St. Andreasberg, in the German region of Harz. |
| Key words: | Samson (biblical and cinematic character), personal name and biographical context, cinematic and Walt Disney characters’ onomastics, name type Samson in anthroponomastics, name type Samson in bird names |
| Language: | English |
| Links: |  pdf  html |
Citations to this publication: 1
| 0 | Ephraim Nissan | A taxonomising excursus into wordplay as affecting anthroponomastics | ICONN 3, 238 | 2015 |
References in this publication: 0
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