Silas (name) Silas (name) Silas is a common given name and a lesser-known surname. It is a cognate of Silvanus. Silas as a name today comes from the early Christian disciple Silas. He is consistently called "Silas" in Acts, but the Latin Silvanus, which means "of the forest," is always used by Paul and in the First Epistle of Peter; it is likely that "Silvanus" is the Romanized version of the original "Silas," or that "Silas" is the Greek nickname for "Silvanus." It has been suggested that Silas is the Greek version of the Aramaic "Seila," a version of the Hebrew "Saul".
Basil (name) Basil (name) The name Basil ("royal, kingly") comes from the male Greek name Vassilios (, female version ), which first appeared during the Hellenistic period. It is derived from "basileus" (), a Greek word of pre-Hellenic origin meaning "king", from which words such as basilica and basilisk (via Latin) as well as the eponymous herb (via Old French) derive, and the name of the Italian region Basilicata, which had been long under the rule of the Byzantine Emperor (also called "basileus"). It was brought to England by the Crusaders, having been common in the eastern Mediterranean. It is more often