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Is there an attested use of the Greek word "petros" (meaning 'stone') as a given name, before it was given to Peter the Apostle?

Note: The name Jesus gave to Peter was most likely 'Kepha,' since that is what John 1:42 says, and since Jesus is most likely to have spoken Aramaic and not Greek. Also, Paul, author of probably the earliest books of the Bible, who had certainly met Peter in real life, called him both Cephas and Peter. So Peter was a name given to Simon/Kepha by those who knew him and spoke Greek. Just wanted to cut the pedants off at the pass.

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  • As I lack the evidence for an actual answer, I offer the best that I have. Here is a very long discussion about the meaning of "Petros" as applied to Peter and its prior existence as a word. While it proves nothing, I would find it very surprising if Petros had been used as a name before and this fact escaped mention in the long discussion there. – called2voyage Nov 8 at 13:29
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    You may get a better response on the biblical hermeneutics stackexchange as biblical text linguistics is up their alley – Samuel Russell Nov 8 at 15:57
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    Perhaps of interest: linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/14328/… – fdb Nov 9 at 15:33
  • @fdb Fascinating find! The quote there is from Wikipedia, unsourced. I also found it in two books of dubious veracy through Google (here and here). If only there was a reputable source, we could have an answer! – kingledion Nov 9 at 16:55

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