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".
Jacob (name) in the United States. Since Jacob is also venerated as a Prophet of Islam, his name is commonly used as a male first name in Arab and Muslim societies (Arabic Yakub, Turkish Yakup). Jacob (name) Jacob is a common male given name and a less well-known surname. It is a cognate of James. Jacob is derived from Late Latin "Iacobus", from Greek "Iakobos", from Hebrew ("Yaʿqob", "Yaʿaqov", " Yaʿăqōḇ"), the name of the Hebrew patriarch, Jacob son of Isaac and Rebecca. The name comes either from the Hebrew root "ʿqb" meaning "to follow, to be behind" but also "to supplant,