🔼The name Anani: Summary
- Meaning
- My Cloud, Cloud Of Yah
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun ענן ('anan), cloud, and possibly (2) יה (yah), the shortened name of the Lord.
🔼The name Anani in the Bible
There's only one Anani mentioned in the Bible. Anani is one of seven sons of Elioenai, a descendant of Solomon (1 Chronicles 3:24).
🔼Etymology of the name Anani
The name Anani comes from the root group ענן:
ענן
The verb ענן ('nn) appears to describe the deriving of solid theories out of hardly related observations. It's used to mean to divine, and noun ענן ('anan) means cloud (which appears like a solid object but is really a bunch of barely relating droplets).
Verb עון ('wn) probably means to conceal or cover. Nouns מעון (ma'on) and מענה (me'ona) refer to the lair, refuge or hideouts of animals, but often too to the habitation of the Creator, which is heaven. And that links this word back to the previous word meaning cloud.
🔼Anani meaning
The name Anani is the name Anan (means Cloud or Obscurity) post-fixed with the letter י (yod). And there are two ways to go about that:
Some scholars (NOBSE Study Bible Name List) assume that the final yod of Anani is a straight forward possessive yod: My Anan, or My Cloud, or My Obscurity.
Another way of looking at the name Anani is favored by Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names), who sees the name Anani as a truncated (or rather an apocopated) form of the name Ananiah, which is the name Anan followed by the appellative יה (Yah) = יהו (Yahu) = יו (Yu), which in turn are abbreviated forms of the Tetragrammaton יהוה, YHWH, or Yahweh. The whole name Anani would thus mean Cloud Of The Lord.