Chapter LIII: Section V: Hieros

The word ἵερος (hieros), sacred, gave the term for a priest, or any other person or thing set apart, and thus formed several names in the family of the kings of Syracuse, Hieron, Hieracles (holy fame), Hieronymus, _i. e._ Ἱερώνυμος (with a holy name). These continued in use among the Greeks, and came at length to that Dalmatian scholar and hermit, Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius, who is reckoned as one of the greatest of the Latin fathers. As a saint of high reputation, his name underwent the Italian process of changing its aspirate into a _G_, and he became San Geronimo, or even Girolamo, whence the French took their frequent Jerome, and we followed their example. The Germans did indeed hold fast to Hieronymus; and the old English reformers would quote St. Hierom; but Jerome is the abiding name by which the saint, his namesakes, and the friars who took his rule are called.

In Ireland, Jerome, like Jeremiah and Edward, has been forced into representing the good old Keltic Diarmaid.

┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐
│ English. │ Portuguese. │ Spanish. │ Italian │
│Hierom │Jeromino │Jeromo │Geronimo │
│ │Hieronimo │Jeromino │Girolamo │
├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤
│ French. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Servian │
│Jerôme │Jeronim │Hieronim │Jerolim │
│ │ │Hirus │Jerko │
└───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘

In Cambrai, Hieronome was the form, with the Hieronomette for a feminine; and among the Swinburnes of Yorkshire, in the seventeenth century, Jeronima thrice occurs.[36]

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Footnote 35:

Liddell and Scott; Smith; Jameson; Sir Isumbras; Ellis, _Domesday
Book_; Michaelis.

Footnote 36:

Grimm; Smith; Scott.