re: #163 moderatelyradicalliberal

I believe his name is Hebrew in origin. It’s somewhere in the Old Testament.

[Link: www.answers.com…]

Nearly the same meaning in Swahili, lightning or burning light.

My understanding is that his name is from Arabic or Swahili, and means ‘blessed’, so it’s cognate to the Hebrew name “Baruch”.

“Barak” in Hebrew is lightning, though, so it may have a similar meaning in other Semitic languages, or languages like Swahili with a lot of loan words.