Wednesday, September 17, 2008

LEVI AND MATTHEW: A small correction to Angele Sionna's Early Childhood Parenting column in the Examiner.
The baby name of the day is... Levi.

We all know about the jeans, but did you know Levi is the Hebrew version of the Greek name Matthew!

That's reportedly why Matthew McConaughey named his son Levi.

[...]

Levi means "joined in harmony" according to babynames.com.
Not quite. Matthew is a Greek version of a Hebrew name that means "gift of God." Levi is the name of one of the twelve founding patriarch's of the tribes of Israel. It too is a Hebrew name. Its meaning is unclear, but it may indeed have something to do with "joining." The apostle Matthew in the New Testament is also known as Levi (compare Mark 2:14 with Matthew 9:9), and that is the connection between the names. If you follow the link in Ms. Sionna's column, you'll see that Matthew McConaughey got this right.

That's my niggle for the day.