Etymology

Abraham first appears in the book of Genesis as Abram, until he is renamed by God in Genesis 17:5. The narrative indicates that abraham means “the father of a multitude" but although "ab-" means "father", "-hamon" is not the second element, and "-Raham" is not a word in Hebrew. Johann Friedrich Karl Keil suggested that there was once a word raham in Hebrew that meant "multitude", on analogy with the Arabic ruhâm which does have this meaning, but no trace of "raham" has been found; another possibility is that the first element should be abr-, which means "chief", but this yields a meaningless second element, "-aham". David Rohl suggests the name comes from the Akkadian "the father loves", but scholars would prefer an origin based on Hebrew.

Abraham - Chronology