In contemporary Israel, "Anat" is a common female first name - see Anat (disambiguation). Philologist Anat Bechar, who herself bears the name, wrote: "The Biblical Shamgar was a rather minor and obscure character, and of his mother Anat we know nothing but her name. We do know that it was the name of a goddess in a Semitic pantheon to which the author(s) of the Bible were strongly and vehemently opposed, though it seems some of our ancestors did at some times worship her. None of which explains the popularity of the name in present-day Israel. To my mind, the reason is likely to be found in the completely accidental similarity of "Anat" with the European name "Annette", which appealed to Zionist pioneers coming from Europe and steeped in European culture. However, this hypothesis needs a thorough research in the Hebrew records from the early 20th Century, to verify or disprove".