1918: Anglicizing Biblical Names With -S Mar 16, 2020

Many anglicizations of Biblical names result in some wild changes but one common feature is the addition of a terminal -s. The reasons are not all the same, but some obvious examples include Yaakov (יעקב) to James, Moshe (משה) to Moses, and even Yeshua (ישוע) to Jesus. In a broad sense, all of these names came to English after being modified in Greek and or Latin, but these questions have been examined elsewhere in time as well. In the case of Moses, Josephus—who also was born just Yosef, without the S—believed the element -esês is from a root meaning 'saved', but this poses its own problems both etymologically and historically. As for the Jesus, this was often, though not exclusively 'jesu' all the way through Middle English even this was changed as a possessive i.e. Jesu's name. In all of these however, and most explicitly in the case of Josephus from Yosef in his own lifetime, this just comes from the nominative form of the name in Latin and Greek ending with those -us or -os endings.

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