🔼The name Barkos: Summary
- Meaning
- Son After His Father
- Lightning
- Etymology
- From (1) בר (bar), son, and (2) קוס (qos), to resemble one's father.
- From the noun ברק (baraq), lightning.
🔼The name Barkos in the Bible
The name Barkos occurs twice in the Bible. Both Ezra and Nehemiah mention him as a family head of temple servants in the newly instated temple service (Ezra 2:53, Nehemiah 7:55).
🔼Etymology of the name Barkos
The name Barkos is a complete mystery, and it's definitely not Hebrew. Or at least, nothing that can be convincingly tied to any of the Hebrew language that makes up the Bible. Barkos may very well be a foreign name, which was transliterated into Hebrew.
Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) thinks our name comes from an unknown Hebrew verb קוס (qos) that in Arabic may mean to resemble one's father. And the first part, according to Jones, comes from בר (bar), the common Aramaic word for son:
בר
The Aramaic noun בר (bar) is cognate with the Hebrew noun בן (ben) and both mean "one of," i.e. one of a certain house, one of a certain profession, one of a certain country, and so on. These nouns are also the regular words for "son."
And then, perhaps Barkos was originally Barak who lived in Greece, where folks Hellenized his name into Barkos:
ברק
The verb ברק (baraq) means to cast forth, predominantly of light and lightning. Noun ברק (baraq) means lightning, or the glittering of weapons. Nouns ברקת (bareqet) and ברקת (bareqat) describe a kind of sparkling or glittering gem.
🔼Barkos meaning
For a meaning of the name Barkos, Alfred Jones reads Son After His Father. NOBSE Study Bible Name List has found the unexplained (or inexplicable) Parti-Colored (and that means partly in one way and partly in another, according to the Oxford Dictionary). BDB Theological Dictionary resolutely declares "root and meaning unknown".