What's in a name?
What's in a name?
12 December 2022
Did you know there are more than 950 names for God in the Bible?
For the first 25 years of my working career, I was a sports journalist. Yep, I got paid for watching sport.
I had the privilege of working on sports desks for newspapers throughout Australia and the United Kingdom, covering everything from local sports competitions to World Cups and Olympic Games.
I rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s best sports men and women and worked alongside some incredibly gifted sports writers and editors. I loved it. I found that a synonymous trend in the ‘world of sport’ was that everyone – the players and quite often the sportswriters – seemed to have a nickname. It kind of went with the territory.
Some nicknames were coined for headline purposes only – for example, the great Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe was the ‘Thorpedo’. Sprinter Usain Bolt was known as ‘Lightning’. And Muhammad Ali was ‘The Greatest’. AFL legend Gary Ablett Snr was ‘God’, golfer Greg Norman was the ‘Shark’ and cricketer Shane Warne was ‘The King of Spin’. And rugby league player Wally Lewis was simply ‘The King’.
Shane Warne well and truly earned his nickname for his cricketing exploits.
Males are more often given nicknames, but over the years there’s been a few famous females: tennis player Martina Hingis was the ‘Swiss Miss’, Australian Diamonds netballer Susan Fuhrmann was the ‘Fuhrmannator’, and two Australian sprinters from the 1950s and 60s earned memorable monikers – Betty Cuthbert was the ‘Golden Girl’ and Marjorie Jackson the ‘Lithgow Flash’.
Some sports stars received nicknames that stuck, whether they liked it or not, and they were better known by this name in public life. AFL player Tony Lockett was simply ‘Plugger’. Leigh Matthews was ‘Lethal’. Tennis legend Rod Laver was ‘Rocket’. Aussie cricketer Ellyse Perry was ‘Pez’, and Mark Waugh was ’Junior’ because he was born four minutes after his twin brother Steve. Surfer Sally Fitzgibbon is just ‘Sal’, and probably the most famous of them all is Eldrick Tont Woods ... universally known as ‘Tiger’.
Newsroom names
Nicknames in the newspaper sports office, however, went to another level from a comedic point of view and were often based on a person’s personality or performance when the pressure of a deadline was at its most intense.
Some of the best news-desk nicknames I came across were: ‘Bushranger’ Bob, who held everyone up; ‘Wheelbarrow’ Wayne, who only worked when he was pushed; ‘Sensor Light’ Larry, who only seemed to operate when someone walked past; and poor old ‘Deck Chair’ Charlie, who always folded under pressure.
All of these nicknames, whether sporting icons or work colleagues, revealed a little about who they were, what they’d achieved or how others perceived them.
Name above all names
Nothing, however, comes close to the ‘nicknames’ associated with God. Yes, God has nicknames! In fact, in the Bible, about 950 names and titles are attributed to him. Now that’s a lot of names!
All his names – from his personal name, Yahweh, to the ones that describe his actions and character – reveal who he is. From ‘Abba Father’ and ‘Ancient of Days’ right through to ‘Jehovah’, ‘El Shaddai’ and ‘Adonai’, describing the character of God is an almost endless list of superlatives – omnipotent, deliverer, marvellous, faithful, faultless ... Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Saviour.
I once tried to underline, in red pen, all the names of God I could find in my Bible. Needless to say, my pen nearly ran out of ink! But what a wonderful exercise it was. The simple act of hunting for the myriad names attributed to the Lord Almighty in the Bible built a solid image in my mind of the heart and character of God that has stayed with me over the years.
Some of the many names for our Lord and Saviour are spoken at Christmas: “... and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
Ultimately, he is the Name above all Names.
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