Lemuel

Meaning of Lemuel

Lemuel is a Hebrew biblical name—usually rendered “belonging to God” or, for the more literal-minded, “for God”—and it slips into the canon by way of Proverbs 31, where a dutiful queen mother counsels her son on wine, women and the perils of indolence. Puritan settlers, ever fond of Old Testament gravitas, ferried the name across the Atlantic, and it later enjoyed a modest literary afterlife: Jonathan Swift christened his wide-eyed voyager Lemuel Gulliver, and a cameo or two pops up in early American sermons and census rolls. In the United States the name rose briskly through the 19th-century ranks before settling into today’s low-key, four-syllable niche—familiar enough to avoid blank stares, rare enough to dodge classroom duplicates. With its mellow rhythm (LEHM-yoo-uhl) and quiet air of antiquity, Lemuel offers parents a scriptural classic that feels neither flashy nor over-recycled—a subtle nod to faith, literature and early American history, all packed into seven letters.