Throughout the Scroll of Esther, Mordechai (Mordecai) — the lead male hero of the story — is known by the name Mordechai. The Talmud (Chullin 139b) famously asks where we find an allusion to the name Mordechai in the Torah, before replying with a phrase describing one of the spices used as an ingredients in the Anointing Oil, pure myrrh (Ex. 30:23). In Hebrew, that phrase reads mar dror, but Targum Onkelos translates it into Aramaic as mira dachya, which is phonetically similar to the name Mordechai. The idea behind this connection is that a righteous person like Mordechai exudes good vibes and good deeds in the same way that sweet-smelling myrrh gives off a good fragrance.

Similarly, the Talmud (Megillah 10b) relates that the Amoraic sage Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachamani would begin his ruminations on the Scroll of Esther by citing the verse, “instead of the thorn-bush will arise a cypress-tree [brosh]… (Isa. 55:13). He plays on the word brosh as though it said b’rosh (“at the head”), and reinterprets it as an allusion to Mordechai, whose name alludes to mar dror which is described by the Torah as besamim rosh (“the head of all spices/fragrances”). Amazingly, the Peirush HaRokeach (to Ex. 30:23) writes that the gematria of the word rosh (=501) equals that of the Hebrew phrase zehu Mordechai Ha’Tzadik (“this is Mordechai the righteous”), thus further cementing the connection.

Nonetheless, it is pretty clear that the Talmud did not mean any of this as an etymological insight into the name Mordechai, but rather as an exegetical allusion to the name in the Torah. What, then, is the actual etymology of the name Mordechai?

Many scholars have already noted the similarity between the name Mordechai and the Babylonian name Merodach, which appears elsewhere in the Bible. For example, the successor to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar was named Evil-Merodach (II Kgs. 28:27); and earlier, at the same time that Hezekiah was king of Judah, a fellow named Merodach-Baladan was the king of Babylonia (Isa. 39:1). Interestingly, Merodach-Baladan is known elsewhere as Berodach-Baladan (II Kgs. 20:12), probably due to the interchangeability of the letters MEM and BET.

Either way, the name Merodach appears one more time in the Bible: When Jeremiah foretold of the impeding destruction of Babylonia and the downfall of its idolatrous........

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