Isidoro

Historical scholarship

Passages quoted verbatim from public-domain reference works. They reflect the scholarship of their time, not current consensus, and may use obsolete spellings.

• 1884From the archives

  Isidoro— “strong gift”

  Before leaving the word _doros_, we may mention the name Isidoros, a very old and frequent one among the ancient Greeks, and explained by some to mean Gift of Isis; but this Egyptian deity is an improbable origin for a name certainly in use before the Greek kingdom in Egypt was established, and it seems more satisfactory to refer the first syllable to ἰς (strength), a word which when it had its digamma was Γις, exactly answering to the Latin _vis_ (force or strength). It…

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  Before leaving the word _doros_, we may mention the name Isidoros, a very old and frequent one among the ancient Greeks, and explained by some to mean Gift of Isis; but this Egyptian deity is an improbable origin for a name certainly in use before the Greek kingdom in Egypt was established, and it seems more satisfactory to refer the first syllable to ἰς (strength), a word which when it had its digamma was Γις, exactly answering to the Latin _vis_ (force or strength). It commenced many old Greek names, but none that have passed on to Christian times except Isidorus, which was first borne by one of the grim hermits of Egypt, then by an Alexandrian author, and then by three Spanish bishops of Cordova, Seville, and Badajos. They probably received it as a resemblance of the Gothic names beginning with _eisen_ (iron). In consequence, Isidoro and the feminine Isidora have continued national in Spain, and Isodoros in Greece, whence Russia has taken Eesidor.

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part III, Chapter V (Christian Greek Names), Section II (Names from Theos) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)