Explanations of Nicknames Provided by the Talmud
Part of a series on Talmudic names. Based on my paper “From Abba to Zebedee: A Comprehensive Survey of Naming Conventions in Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic in Late Antiquity” (Academia.edu, requires registration), section ‘Explanations of Epithets and Surnames Provided by the Talmud’, see there for full info and citations.
Wiktionary defines etymology, sense #4, as: “The direct origin of a name”.
The Talmud in many places discusses the etymology of specific proper names. A subset of this is the etymologization of certain place names, including טבריה, אבן שתיה, חדקל, and חמת.
The practice of exploring name origins has deep roots within Jewish literary tradition, tracing back to the Biblical texts, especially the Book of Genesis. The quest to understand the origins of names, both of people and places, pervades the stories of Adam, Eve, the Patriarchs, and the Twelve Tribes. A particular noteworthy example is the Biblical etymology of the word Manna - מן, which is not a place or person name.
The Talmud delves into the derivation of various Biblical names, often associating them with notable figures or correlating diverse names. Some prime examples include the names of Mount Sinai, King Solomon, Moses, Jethro, and Haman.
The Talmud is also renowned for providing etiological narratives surrounding several Talmudic names, often weaving them into engaging tales. Among the Tannaitic surnames etymologized by the Talmud are המעגל, (בן) כלבא שבוע, (שמואל) הקטן, איש גמזו, בן ציצית הכסת, בעל כנפיים, בר כוכבא, הנחבא, מאיר, מוקיר שבי, נקדימון בן גרויון, and קטנתה / קטנתא / קטנותא.
Here are a few illustrations of this phenomenon.
“"HaMe'agel" in Hebrew means "circle maker" [...] His surname is derived from an incident in which, according to the Babylonian Talmud, his prayer for rain was miraculously answered. On one occasion, when God did not send rain well into the winter (in Israel, it rains mainly in the winter), Honi drew a circle in the dust, stood inside it, and informed God that he would not move until it rained. When it began to drizzle, Honi told God that he was not satisfied and expected more rain; it then began to pour. He explained that he wanted a calm rain, at which point the rain calmed to a normal rain.”
To explain his nickname "The Small", the Jerusalem Talmud brings two interpretations: "Because he would belittle himself" and behave humbly, and "Because he was only slightly lesser than Samuel the Ramathite".
Nachum Ish Gamzu's name is described in the Talmud as having grown colloquially from Nachum's tendency to react to misfortune with unyielding optimism, in each case uttering a phrase that became famously attached to him: "gam zu le-tovah," meaning, "this, too, is for the best." The two words "gam zu" ("גמ זו", meaning "this too") were combined into the single-word nickname "Gamzu" ("גמזו"), with "Ish Gamzu" then meaning "The Gamzu Man".