Is Cindy in the Bible? No, It Began as a Short Form of Cynthia

No one named Cindy appears in the Bible. Cindy began as a short form of Cynthia, a Greek title of the goddess Artemis, or of Lucinda, a name built on the Latin word for “light.” It became a name in its own right in the 20th century and has no Hebrew or biblical meaning.

Is Cindy in the Bible?

The name is not in the Hebrew or Greek text of the Bible, and no translation in any language uses it. Cynthia and Lucinda are not in the Bible either. Cindy is an English name made from Greek and Latin sources, so it has no Hebrew form and no Hebrew meaning.

What is Cindy short for?

Behind the Name, a reference on the history of given names, lists Cindy as a diminutive of Cynthia or of Lucinda. Cynthia is the Latin form of the Greek Kynthia, “woman from Cynthus,” a title of Artemis, who in Greek myth was born on Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos. Lucinda was made from Lucia by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes for his novel Don Quixote (1605). Lucia, whose English form is Lucy, is the feminine of the Roman name Lucius, which comes from lux, “light.” What Cindy means depends on which name it shortens: “woman from Cynthus,” or, through Lucinda, “light.”

Nominis, the website of saints and names run by the Catholic bishops of France, gives a third origin. It treats Cindy as short for Cinderella, Cendrillon in French, a name meaning “little ashes,” and adds that some consider it a diminutive of Cynthia.

Artemis in the Bible

The goddess behind Cynthia does appear in Scripture. In Acts 19, a silversmith of Ephesus named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, stirred up the craftsmen of the city against Paul’s preaching. A crowd filled the theater, and “for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’” (Acts 19:34). The King James Version and the Spanish Reina-Valera call her by her Roman name, Diana.

When was Cindy popular?

Cindy first entered the list of the 1,000 most common names for American girls in 1938. It climbed through the 1950s and reached 19th place in 1957, the same year Cynthia was at its peak. It declined steadily from the 1960s and left the list after 2014. In France the name was taken up later: Cindy was among the 30 most common names for French girls from 1981 to 1994, and ranked 21st in 1984, 1985 and 1993.

Is there a Saint Cindy?

No saint is named Cindy. Nominis links the name to Saint Cindeus, a priest of Side in Pamphylia, on the south coast of what is now Turkey, who was martyred under the emperor Diocletian. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 11 July and says that after suffering many torments “he was thrown into the fire, but remaining uninjured, he yielded up his soul in prayer.”

Related reading

• Is Cynthia in the Bible? No, It Was a Greek Title of Artemis
• Diana Is in the Bible: the Goddess of Ephesus in Acts 19
• Is Lucy in the Bible? No, It Comes from the Latin Lucia, Meaning Light
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names