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".
Common cockle it was given that old binomial name of "Cardium edule". The species name is derived from the Latin adjective "ĕdūlis" "edible". Italian naturalist Giuseppe Saverio Poli erected the genus "Cerastoderma" in 1795, making the common cockle the type species as "Cerastoderma edule". The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek words "keras" "horn" and "derma" "skin". For many years it was referred to by both names. Other common names in English are edible cockle and common edible cockle. On account of its heart-like shape and its similarity to mussels, it is called the heart mussel in German and Scandinavian