I would not be against this on principle, but I rather fear that it would
likely have both positive and negative consequences: it would call
attention to the POSSIBILITY of intentional word-play (such as I believe is
actually involved in Luke's addressee in the gospel and Acts, QEOFILOS or
"God's-Friend"); but it would also set in motion speculative processes
about intended word-play where in fact none might be intended (I think of
other theophoric names such as DIONUSIOS, "Belonging-to-Dionysus", for
instance). Generally where we have names like Wheelwright or Cartwright or
Smith or Clark in English, we do not immediately think of these as
indicators of occupational categories into which the bearers of these names
may fall, although we reasonably surmise that the original holder of such
names may have fell into such categories. Similarly in Greek there would be
names like hIPPOKLHS or FEIDIPPIDHS which nobody would really want to
anglicize as "horse-famed" or "horse-sparer." So it seems to me that
adoption of this practice would be a mixed bag: one who knows the ancient
languages doesn't need it, and one who doesn't will have an indication in
footnotes of those instances where it clearly plays a role in the narrative
(e.g. Isaac's name meaning "laughed" or Jacob's name meaning "heel").
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/