León

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

  Leon— “lion”

  Leon, or Leo, was early a favourite name among the Greeks; and Herodotus thinks, on account of its meaning, that the captive Leo was the first victim of the Persians. It passed on in unceasing succession through Greeks of all ranks till it came to Byzantine emperors and Roman bishops. Two popes, to whom Rome owed the deepest debt of gratitude—to the one, for interceding with Attila; to the other, for turning away the wrath of the Saracens—were both called Leo, and it thus…

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  Leon, or Leo, was early a favourite name among the Greeks; and Herodotus thinks, on account of its meaning, that the captive Leo was the first victim of the Persians. It passed on in unceasing succession through Greeks of all ranks till it came to Byzantine emperors and Roman bishops. Two popes, to whom Rome owed the deepest debt of gratitude—to the one, for interceding with Attila; to the other, for turning away the wrath of the Saracens—were both called Leo, and it thus became a favourite on the papal throne, and was considered to allude to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, which was therefore sculptured on St. Peter’s, in the time of the Medicean Leo X.

  Yonge, History of Christian Names (1884), Part III, Chapter III (Names From Animals, Etc), Section I (The Lion) · Public domain (Project Gutenberg)