Saturday, November 09, 2013

I don't think Barsanuphius is such a bad name

It is one of the prototypical names thrown around as one of those "too wacky" saints names to choose, but I don't think it is so bad. You could nickname the kid "Barney" or "Barry".

"Paphnutios", on the other hand, cannot be rescued. It is unfortunate, though, because it is a fantastic name. It was Chebyshev's name, too, by the way.

Chebyshev (or perhaps better transcribed as Chebyshov) was the man who proved that, for any n, there is a prime p such that n < p < 2n. He was also the advisor of Markov.

Anyway! The point remains, the name sounds odd and there's no good way to obscure it with a nickname (unless you want to nickname the kid "antelope").

3 comments:

Eric said...

Paphnutios is from the Coptic pa-pe-noute, which means "man of God." It might make a nice middle name.

Mr. G. Z. T. said...

He was also a pretty great saint!

Just think: Alexis Paphnutios. Great combo.

Anna said...

Barsanuphius can also be shortened to "Barf"