Silas (name) The Latin name "Silvanus" may be derived from pre-Roman Italian languages. 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
John (given name) Yônāṯān, which means "Gift from YHWH" and thus is a longer version of Nathan. John (given name) John is a common masculine given name in the English language of originally Semitic origin. The name is derived from the Latin "Ioannes" and "Iohannes", which are forms of the Greek name "Iōannēs" (), originally borne by Hellenized Jews transliterating the Hebrew name "Yohanan" (), "Graced by Yah", or (), "Yahweh is Gracious". There are numerous forms of the name in different languages; these were formerly often simply translated as "John" in English but are increasingly left in their native forms (see sidebar).