Bauckham, Richard. “Chapter 4, Palestinian Jewish Names.” Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony.” Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006, pp. 67-92.
Bauckham recognizes names of people in antiquity as a very important element in the process of entering into a study of the people. Recent studies have shown that given names in Palestine from 330 B.C. to 200 A.D. remained relatively stable (Bauckham 2006, 68). There were also rather few commonly used names.
Among the names which were not very popular, it is difficult to rank overall frequency. The small sample size and limitations of the data collected make the smaller figures less likely to be significant (Bauckham 2006, 71). Bauckham explains in some detail how his analysis of the data was carried on, breaking it down in several different ways. Of significance, he notes that names in Palestine were significantly different from those in the Diaspora. This suggests that the names used of Palestinians in the New Testament were not later accretions. The testimony seems to be from the place and time described (Bauckham 2006, 74).
Bauckham suggests that some names were very popular because of their identification with the Hasmonean dynasty, which had successfully asserted a Jewish state in the 2nd century B.C. (Bauckham 2006, 74). Some of the other popular names may well have been commonly used because they referred to God’s name, or because of their significant meaning (Bauckham 2006, 76).
Bauckham observes an important effect of the small number of names. In Palestine, but not in the Diaspora, a name and a relative, city, or occupation would be joined so as to identify, for instance, which Simon was being spoken of (Bauckham 2006, 78). Bauckham illustrates these methods of distinguishing individuals using New Testament characters.