Israel

(male) Biblical name, originally the byname (meaning ‘he who strives with God’ in Hebrew) given to Jacob after he had wrestled with an angel: ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed’ (Genesis 32:28). The name was later applied to his descendants, the Children of Israel, and was chosen as the name of the modern Jewish state. The given name was used by the Puritans in the 16th century, but is now once again almost exclusively a Jewish name.