Absalom (Hebrew: אַבְשָלוֹם, Modern: ʼAvšalōm, Tiberian: ʼAḇšālōm, "father of peace"; Biblical Greek: Αβεσσαλωμ) is a masculine first name from the Old Testament, where Absalom is a son of King David.
The variant Avishalom (Hebrew: אֲבּישָׁלוֹם, Modern: ʼAvīšalōm, Tiberian: ʼĂḇīšālōm, "my father is peace")
is used as the name of the father-in-law of Rehoboam in 1 Kings (15:2,10), who in 2 Chronicles 11:20,21 is referred to by the shorter form Avshalom. The modern Scandinavian first name, Axel, has developed (via Axelen) from Absalon, a 12th-century Danish archbishop and statesman. The variant Absolon is a German surname.
The name was also used in medieval England (variants Absolon, Apsolon, and Abselon). As in the biblical story, as Absalom was pursuing his father, King David, in the forest of Ephraim and had his long hair caught in a tree, the name appears to have been a nickname for a man with long or thick hair, as suggested by a passage in the Canterbury Tales,
Now was ther of that Chirche a parish clerk, The which that was ycleped Absolon ... Curl was his heer and as the gold it shoon.
This use as a nickname is possibly also the origin of Absalom as an English surname. The name Absalom continued to be used in English Protestantism in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Hebrew name was used among Palestinian Jews in the 19th to early 20th centuries and remains current in Israel; it is mostly anglicized as Avshalom, reflecting Modern Hebrew pronunciation.
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First name
Absalom
Absalom (c. 100 BC), a son of Jewish High Priest John Hyrcanus
Absalom Shade Allan (1843 – after 1901), Canadian merchant and politician
Absalom Baird (1824–1905), Union Army general in the American Civil War
Absalom Boston (1785–1855), American businessman and captain
Absalom Harris Chappell (1801–1878), American politician and lawyer
Absalom Dlamini (born 1984), Swazi footballer
Absalom Themba Dlamini (born 1950), former Prime Minister of Eswatini
Absalom Greeley (1823–1885), Canadian politician
Absalom J. Hembree (1813–1856), American soldier and politician
Absalom Iimbondi (born 1991), Namibian footballer
Absalom Jones (1746–1818), African American abolitionist and clergyman
Absalom Jordan (1840–1888), American Civil War soldier
Absalom Koiner (1824–1920), American lawyer and politician
Absalom Willis Robertson (1887–1971), American politician
Absalom P. Rowe (1817–1900), American politician from Virginia
Surname
"Absalom" is a rare English surname, recorded as early as the 13th century. It derives from the first name Absalom, which became popular in England in the 12th century. The surname remained rare throughout its existence, but it gave rise to a number of variants, such as Asplen, and via the latter, Aspling and Ashplant.
The variant Absolon is found in England as well as in France and Germany, reaching Central Europe in the late medieval period, so that Absolon (feminine Absolonová) is now also a Czech and Slovak surname.
Absalom
Henry W.L. Absalom, a member of the Scientific Committee on the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955–58, eponymous of Mount Absalom in Antarctica.
Jack Absalom (1927–2019), Australian artist
Mike Absalom (born 1940), English folk singer-songwriter
Ted Absolom (1875–1927), Australian rules footballer.
Joe Absolom (1978), English film actor
Absolon
John Absolon (1815–1895), British watercolor painter
Karel Absolon (1877–1960), Czech archaeologist, geographer, palaeontologist, and speleologist
Karla Absolonová-Bufková (1855–1941), Czech writer, ethnographer and folklorist
Andrea Absolonová (1976–2004), Czech diver, and pornographic actress known as Lea De Mae
Milada Absolonová, Czechoslovak slalom canoeist