Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life.

In the time it takes to get to work, I'm Keith Simon.

In the Bible, names are very important. Names do more than give you an easy way to refer to someone. Names tell you something about the person,

or at least about their parents aspirations for them.

While names don't play the same role in our time and place as they did in the ancient world,

they are still important and shape a person's life.

With some names you can tell the parents were trying to be unique.

Other names have a more classic feel.

Oftentimes a kid is named after someone in the family.

When I grew up, there was an elementary gym teacher

with the last name of pop. Kids called him Mr. Pop. Here's the catch. His first

name was Soda. Can you imagine introducing herself as Soda Pop?

His sister's name was Lolly.

You think I'm making this up, but I'm not.

Sometimes we change something's name to give it a new image. For example, there

were fish that tasted great but had weird names so people didn't want to order them in a restaurant.

But they changed the toothfish to Chilean sea bass.

Wouldn't you rather order a sea bass for dinner

than a toothfish?

They changed the name of a fish called

Slim Head to Orange Ruffi.

No one is going to order Slim Head to eat.

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