Message: "Lydia" - Behind the Name

[Facts] Lydia

by minikui (guest)

5/20/2007, 4:53 AM

I was wondering if anybody knew the meaning of the name of the country "Lydia". From wikipedia I got that the country and the people were named after their King "Lydios", but I can't seem to find a meaning for either of them.

Thanks in advance :)

#Lydia

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- minikui (guest) +1

5/21/2007, 1:57 AM

Lydia = Slave?

Thanks for the answer Andy, eventhough it was what I feared ;)
Now I've been searching a bit more and I keep finding the first name to be associated with the meaning "slave". Where does that come from? I didn't find anything about the Lydia from the bible being a slave, but maybe I missed something?

- Andy ;—) (guest)

5/21/2007, 10:51 AM

You are right, the biblical Lydia was anything but a slave, she was an independant trader. But of course, her profession or status has nothing to do with the meaning of her name. Some scholars even suspect that Lydia was not her real name but that she was called Lydia just because she was from Lydia. But nobody seems to know the meaning.

- Andy ;—) (guest)

5/20/2007, 3:44 PM

I don't think, anybody knows. At least I haven't been able to find any meaning behind the name. My Greek dictionary doesn't have one entry starting with "lyd-", so the name is most likely to be pre-Greek. Usually this means: meaning unnown. Sorry.

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