The Distribution of Theophoric Elements in a Corpus of 262 Biblical Personal Names: A Quantitative Analysis of Yahwistic, El-Based, Adon, and Shaddai Name Formations

Abstract The study examines the distribution of theophoric elements in a corpus of 262 biblical personal names extracted from a systematically compiled onomastic corpus. The analysis focuses on four principal categories of Hebrew theophoric formations: Yahwistic names containing the divine element Yah/Yahu, names incorporating the divine title El, names derived from Adon ("Lord"), and names containing the divine epithet Shaddai. Quantitative analysis demonstrates that Yahwistic formations constitute 55.34% of the corpus (145 names), while El-based formations account for 41.60% (109 names). Names containing Adon represent 1.91% (5 names), whereas Shaddai-based formations constitute only 0.76% (2 names). These findings indicate that although Yahwistic anthroponymy became the dominant naming pattern within the Hebrew biblical tradition, El-based formations remained remarkably productive and continued to occupy a substantial portion of the onomastic landscape. The data suggest the coexistence of multiple theological naming traditions within the Hebrew Bible and provide quantitative support for observations previously advanced in biblical onomastic scholarship. Rather than attempting to reconstruct the history of Israelite religion from anthroponymic evidence alone, the study seeks to establish a statistically grounded description of the distribution of major theophoric elements in a defined corpus. The results contribute to the fields of biblical onomastics, Hebrew linguistics, and the study of religious terminology preserved in personal names. Keywords Biblical Onomastics; Hebrew Personal Names; Theophoric Names; Yahweh; El; Hebrew Bible; Anthroponymy; Biblical Hebrew