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Summary
- No one named Blake appears in the Bible, and no English translation uses the name.
- Blake began as an English surname from Old English blæc, “black,” or blac, “pale,” so it can mean either “dark” or “pale.”
- In Middle English the two words were spelled so alike that it is often impossible to tell which one is meant.
- The Old English word for black appears in Matthew 5:36 in the West Saxon Gospels of about 990.
- Blake has no Hebrew meaning; the Hebrew word for black is shachor, as in Song of Songs 1:5.
- Blake was mainly a boy’s name, peaking at 71st in the United States in 2012; its use for girls grew after 2007.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Behind the Name, “Blake,” with United States popularity figures from Social Security Administration data. https://www.behindthename.com/name/blake
- Online Etymology Dictionary, “black,” quoting the Oxford English Dictionary on Middle English blac, blak, blake. https://www.etymonline.com/word/black
- Euangelium Secundum Mattheum: The Gospel of Saint Matthew in West-Saxon, ed. James Wilson Bright (D. C. Heath, 1904; corrected 1910), chapter 5, Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Evangelium_Secundum_Mattheum:_the_Gospel_of_Saint_Matthew_in_West-Saxon/Chapter_5
- “Wessex Gospels,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessex_Gospels
- Strong’s Hebrew Concordance 7838, shachor, with Brown-Driver-Briggs, Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7838.htm
- “William Blake,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
- The Morgan Library & Museum, “Illustrations of the Book of Job,” William Blake’s World. https://www.themorgan.org/collection/William-Blakes-World/91
- “And did those feet in ancient time,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time
- Bible Gateway keyword searches for “Blake” in the King James Version, New International Version and New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (no results). https://www.biblegateway.com/
- Scripture quotations: Matthew 5:36; Song of Songs 1:5, English Standard Version. Reference: Leviticus 13:37.
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