Hieronymus

Hieronymus is the Latin shape of the Greek Hieronymos, from hieros, sacred, and onyma, name — a name that means sacred name, a small tautology beloved of early Christians. Its most celebrated bearer is Saint Jerome, the fourth-century scholar who translated the Bible into Latin and produced the Vulgate, and after him the painter Hieronymus Bosch, whose triptychs made the name permanently strange. Five syllables, hee-eh-ROH-nee-mus, almost entirely confined now to Dutch, German, and scholarly use. The name reads bookish, eccentric, faintly medieval, a boy's name for a child whose desk will always be the most interesting object in the room.