Bartholomew

Where Bartholomew comes from

From Latin Bartholomaeus, from Ancient Greek Βαρθολομαῖος (Bartholomaîos), from Aramaic בר תלמי (bar tolmai, “son of Talmai; son of Ptolemy”), from בר (bar, “son”) and תלמי (tolmai, “Talmai; Ptolemy”). It has long been unclear whether the Apostle's father was named after the biblical Talmai, king of Geshur, or one of the Greek Ptolemies, as the two originally unrelated names were conflated in Jewish Aramaic. The name's pronunciation was changed to match the spelling; contrast French Barthélemy from the same source.
— Wiktionary's entry for Bartholomew
  • Aramaic
  • 4 syllables
Along the way
  1. 100 BC
    Bartholomew the Apostle born
    Christian apostle and martyr
  2. 1682
    Bartholomew Roberts born
    Welsh pirate
  3. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #909 among boys — 5 babies in the first year on record.
  4. 1885
    Peak, #480
    15 babies named Bartholomew — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1887
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #752.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name from Aramaic of biblical origin.
Namesakes
  • Bartholomew the Apostle · Christian apostle and martyr, 100 BC–100
  • Bartholomew Roberts · Welsh pirate, 1682–1722
  • Bartholomew Ogbeche · Nigerian and French footballer, born 1984
  • Bartholomew Anglicus · 13th-century scholastic scholar, author of the compendium De proprietatibus rerum, 1203–1272
  • Bartholomew Gosnold · English barrister, explorer, and privateer, 1572–1607

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.