Sapphira

The stone in the name was probably not a sapphire

The name rests on the Hebrew word sappir, and the translation is less obvious than it looks. Most scholars take sappir in the Hebrew Bible to mean lapis lazuli — the deep blue stone from what is now Afghanistan, the one that was ground into ultramarine pigment — rather than the blue corundum that jewellers call sapphire today. The English word descends from the biblical one. The mineral it points at does not.

The word itself is a traveller. Greek sappheiros is a loan from a Semitic source, and some etymologists push the trail further back to a Sanskrit original, though that last step is argued about. The Hebrew noun has also been connected to the verb shapar, "to be pleasing" or "to be beautiful"; that reading is offered as an alternative rather than as a consensus, and it is why you will find some name sites giving "beautiful" as the meaning.

Sapphira in the Acts of the Apostles

Sapphira's famous appearance is not a flattering one. In the fifth chapter of Acts she and her husband Ananias sell a piece of land, keep back part of the price, and present the rest as the whole sum. Peter confronts each of them in turn; both fall down dead. It is one of the hardest passages in the New Testament, and it gives the name a faint edge in Christian contexts that its sound does not prepare you for.

The name survived regardless. It belongs to the category of obscure biblical figures rather than major ones, which is exactly the category that has stayed in low but continuous use in English-speaking countries for centuries.

A name with a dragon attached

The spelling most people type is not quite the one in Acts. Saphira — one p, no h — is the blue dragon bonded to the hero of Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, which began with Eragon in 2002. It is sapphire with a letter removed, and it is the reason a search for the name often turns up a dragon before it turns up anything biblical.

Worth knowing if it is the dragon you are thinking of: Saphira is a she, and the character is one of the best-known animal companions in modern children's fantasy. A dog named after her will be recognised by a specific generation and puzzled over by everyone else.

Saying it, and cutting it down

Sapphira runs to three syllables, and where the stress goes depends on who is saying it. The pronunciation recorded in our own listing is /sæˈfaɪərə/, which puts the weight in the middle — sæ-FY-ə-rə — and rhymes that syllable with "eye" rather than "ear". The more common English reading, suh-FEER-uh, rhymes it with "fear". Both are in circulation.

Either way you are looking at a three-syllable name with a fricative in the middle, which is a great deal of name for a dog to answer to at distance. The practical answer is to shorten it, and to decide the short form before the dog arrives rather than after — changing a recall cue later means retraining it. Saffy is the obvious choice and is already an established English diminutive in its own right; Saph and Fira both keep the shape of the name and are short enough to carry.

See also: Hebrew dog names · Sapphire · Delilah · Miriam · Yael

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