The Tale of Daniel

As the father of a son named Daniel, I found this fascinating. Thanks!<p>I think I agree with the comment in the conclusion that Torah names are used by non-Jews when a Christian comes across the name. But I don&#x27;t think in this case it&#x27;s because of the supposed prophecies about Jesus but because the stories about Daniel in the Book of Daniel are memorable. I remember hearing about &quot;Daniel in the Lion&#x27;s Den&quot; and Daniel sitting in flames in church and in my Children&#x27;s Bible stories.<p>But I chose the name for my son not (directly) because of its religious significance but because it&#x27;s a normal, known name, in both English and Spanish. That is, neither a WASP American or a Mexican will really bat an eye at it. As a Hispanic American, that&#x27;s something I&#x27;ve appreciated about my own name, Gabriel (and would love a historical deep dive on that name!). I couldn&#x27;t really find any other names like that.

Oh wow, don’t encounter Lichtheim too often on most parts of the Web!<p>There’s a third volume, too. Nb they were released far enough apart that later volumes contain errata for earlier ones (like calling out fraudulent or mistaken dates on some of the works, which errors weren’t discovered until after the volume was printed)<p>I’ve read them cover to cover. Tried that with single-volume collections of Akkadian and Sumerian literature, but they were way harder to follow—too fragmentary, too little context. Didn’t finish either.<p>Gilgamesh is amazing though, and easily the best pre-Homeric work I’ve read, zero competitors are even close.

A fun article!<p>I think a more probable understanding of the &quot;Daniel&quot; reference in Ezekiel is that it is same Daniel from the book of Daniel.<p>Even if you assume that the prophecies in the book of Daniel were written retroactively 600 years later (given the accuracy of described events) it does not preclude an actual powerful person of that name being alive at same time as Ezekiel, and being the basis for later attribution.<p>Both Ezekiel and Daniel are written covering a similar set of years. Both refer to a person named Daniel widely famous for his &quot;righteousness&quot;. It would seem improbable that they were talking about entirely different people.<p>Again, had a lot of fun reading that.

Oh, this is really cool. As a &quot;Daniel&quot; myself, I really appreciate the background story of my name.<p>Sometimes, it&#x27;s also interesting to get to know the story of how someone got their name. When my mum was younger, there was a really cute little boy my mum really liked when she was on vacation with my grandparents. Not in a romantic way, as he was, like, still a small kid. And she then decided that, when I was born in &#x27;86, I should receive his name. I found this super cute, and It&#x27;s one of those stories that will always remind me of my mum.

Graph of Daniel vs time: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rowzero.io&#x2F;workbook&#x2F;CA82F353F7060CA9411A12EB" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rowzero.io&#x2F;workbook&#x2F;CA82F353F7060CA9411A12EB</a>

As someone named Daniel it is really nice that it is a common name in most European languages and never deviates in spelling. Please people give your children the most boring name possible.

For relatively detailed information on the Ugaritic &quot;Danel&quot; and his relation to the Book of Ezekiel, see his Wikipedia article at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Danel" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Danel</a>

That was fun and very much in the spirit of Hacker News.

Really cool article. I&#x27;m not sure about one point, though.<p>&gt; In the Torah, both Noah and Job are treated as pious men, but critically, neither are Israelites. Making Daniel part of the trio implies he was also a righteous non-Jew.<p>Doesn&#x27;t this confuse being Israelite with being Jewish? IIRC, the kingdom of Israel predates the Jewish religion by a few hundred years, based on older archaeological references to the kingdom&#x27;s name from neighboring kingdoms.

Apparently my parents didn&#x27;t know what to name me for about a week and eventually settled on Daniel, in this spelling it was a very unusual name in Soviet Union at the time. I think they liked some famous polish actor <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Daniel_Olbrychski" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Daniel_Olbrychski</a>.<p>A more slavic spelling of this is Danilo but it was even less popular than Daniel.<p>I knew only one other Daniel and he was a son of family&#x27;s friends and apparently named after me. I didn&#x27;t much care for him, but that&#x27;s beside the point.<p>Coming to USA and it was a bit sad to no longer have a very unique name. It&#x27;s okay though, my last name is very unique...

What I find most interesting in the origin of the name is the theological context, &quot;Daniel&quot; =&gt; Judged by God, indiicating a theological conception that people are accountable to God for their behaviour. Compare this to Greek naming. Even from a slightly later period &quot;Herakles&quot; =&gt; Fame of Hera. A different relationship to their god(s).

My mum said she named me after Elton Johns song &#x27;Daniel&#x27; - Rumoured to be his long lost gay lover. Thanks mum.

There was some old Irish American song I heard that included the lines &quot;Some think it a misfortune to be christened Pat or Dan&#x2F;But to me it is an honor to be called an Irishman.&quot;<p>I suppose that Daniel O&#x27;Connell&#x27;s fame could have accounted for the popularity of the name among the Irish.

Word of caution on giving children “interesting” or cute names - my father’s legal first name was a variation on “daniel” (a common nickname) and since his passing and becoming the executor of what little was left of his estate, I was astounded at how many stupid issues he had with credit reports and even dumb things like utility bills incorrectly “correcting” his name to Daniel.

&gt;clay tablets are expensive<p>That&#x27;s not the first time I hear that. Still can&#x27;t figure out why it was true.