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".
Maryam (name) given names derived from Aramaic "Maryam" are extremely frequent in Christian culture, and, to a lesser extent, due to the Quranic tradition of Mary, the name is also not infrequently given in Islamic cultures. There are a large number of variants and derivations. The New Testament gives the name as both "Mariam" (Μαριάμ) and "Maria" (Μαρία). The Latin Vulgate uses the first declension, "Maria". "Maryam" is the now-usual English-language rendition of the Arabic name. The spelling "Mariyam" (in German-language contexts also "Marijam") is sometimes used as a close transcription from Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic. The spelling "Mariam" is current in