Biblical Last Name Generator

Generate biblical last names: family names formed from the given names of the Bible, such as Abrams, Jacobson, Matthews and Bartholomew, priestly and tribal names like Cohen, Levy and Asher, and surnames that match biblical places such as Jordan, Sharon and Shiloh.

About biblical last names

Nobody in the Bible had a last name. People were told apart by a patronymic (Simon bar Jonah, Joshua son of Nun), by a home town (Jesus of Nazareth, Mary Magdalene) or by a byname (Elijah the Tishbite, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot). Hereditary surnames arrived many centuries later, and when they did, families across Europe and the Middle East built them from the biblical given names they used. This list holds those modern surnames.

Most are patronymics. English adds -s or -son (Abrams, Jacobson) and hides pet forms inside Dawkins (David), Perkins (Peter), Bates (Bartholomew), Hancock (John) and Elliott (Elias). Welsh ab Evan became Bevan, Gaelic gives MacIsaac and McShane, Scandinavia Jakobsen and Persson, Spain Pérez, Italy Di Pietro, the Slavic languages Ivanov, Petrović and Pavlenko, Armenian Hovhannisyan. Arabic keeps the same figures as Ibrahim, Daoud, Boutros and Hanna.

A second group is priestly and tribal: Cohen, Kohn, Kagan and Katz point to the kohanim, Levy, Levin and Segal to the Levites, alongside Israel, Asher and Benjamin. Matronymics such as Rivkin (Rivka), Sorkin (Sarah) and Dworkin (Deborah) honor biblical women. The last group matches places and words: Jordan, Sharon, Golan, Shiloh, Santiago, Bautista, Cruz and Pentecost. A name like this tells you about language, not about the faith of the family that carries it.

How to choose biblical last names

• Match the form to the character's background: -s and -son for English families (Isaacs, Samuelson), -sen for Danish and Norwegian ones (Mikkelsen), -ović or -enko for Slavic ones (Marković, Petrenko), -yan for Armenian ones (Petrosyan) and Ben- for modern Israeli names (Ben-David).
• For a story set in biblical times, use no surname at all. Give the character a patronymic, a home town or a byname instead: bar Jonah, son of Nun, of Nazareth, the Tishbite.
• Pair a biblical surname with a given name from outside the Bible. Helen Abrams or Victor Bartlett reads naturally, while a biblical name on both sides reads as a statement about the family.
• Cohen and Levy carry a tradition of descent from the priests and the Levites, so readers who know that tradition will notice the choice. Pick them on purpose, not as a generic label.
• Never read a person's religion from the name. Jacobs, Ibrahim and Matthews are carried by families of every faith and of none.

Frequently asked questions

Did people in the Bible have last names?

No. Hereditary surnames did not exist in the biblical world. A person was identified by a father's name (Simon bar Jonah, James son of Zebedee), by a place (Jesus of Nazareth, Saul of Tarsus) or by a byname (Elijah the Tishbite, Judas Iscariot). The surnames in this list are later family names, nearly all of them built from a biblical name, place or word.

What are the most common last names that come from the Bible?

Johnson, Jones, Davis, Thomas, Jackson, Thompson and Anderson are among the most common surnames in the United States, and every one goes back to a biblical given name: John, David, Thomas and Andrew. Adams, Evans, Phillips, Matthews, Stevens and Simmons belong to the same family of names.

What do Cohen and Levy mean?

Cohen is the Hebrew word kohen, priest, and Levy comes from Levi, the tribe of the Levites who served in the Temple. Kohn, Kahn, Kagan and Kogan are regional spellings of Cohen, Katz is an acronym of kohen tzedek and Segal of segan leviyah. Levin, Levine, Levitt and Halevi stand beside Levy.

Is every surname here certainly biblical in origin?

Most are formed from a biblical given name, but a few only match a biblical word. Bethell is often the Welsh ab Ithel, Eden is often an English place name, and Salmon comes from Salomon, not from the fish. The same surname can have different origins in different families, so research your own line before drawing conclusions.

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All 500 biblical last names