Saint Ezequiél Moreno y Díaz
Dr. Cleveland Evans writes about names for the Omaha World-Herald. In his August 30th column, he looks at the history of the name Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is the English form of Hebrew Yechezqel, “God will strengthen.” The original Ezekiel was a Jewish prophet exiled in Babylon who wrote the Biblical book bearing his name around 570 BCE. Ezekiel’s visions weren’t popular with medieval Christians. The name was only borne by Jews until the Reformation. Then Protestants discovered it. An early example was Ezekiel Clifton, a wealthy landowner in Holderness, England, honored with several namesakes in the early 1500s.
Most of Ezekiel’s early-20th-century use was among the African American and Hispanic communities. It got a boost in 1992 when St. Ezequiél Moreno (1848-1906), Augustinian missionary to the Philippines and Colombia, was canonized. Since 1995, Ezekiel has boomed with Americans of all ethnicities, ranking 87th in 2018. This doesn’t represent religious revival — sociologist Stanley Lieberson found non-religious Americans slightly more likely than the religious to choose Biblical baby names.
Want to know more? Read on to find out more about Ezekiels in history!