To name something in the ancient world was to have some hold on it, which is why the question Moses asks at the burning bush is so bold and the answer so disarming. God does not give a name that classifies him. He gives a sentence: I AM WHO AM. Every other name in Scripture is added to that one, and none of them closes the subject.
What follows are the great names and titles, in the order Scripture unfolds them. The Latin given is the Vulgate’s, since that is the form the Church has prayed and sung.
The names
I AM WHO AM
Ego sum qui sum
The name God gives himself when Moses asks for one at the burning bush. It is less a label than a refusal of one: God does not say what he is like, he says that he is — existence itself, needing nothing outside to hold it up. Behind the Hebrew stands the four letters YHWH, which the Vulgate renders Dominus and the Jews, out of reverence, do not pronounce.
Exodus 3 · 14
God Almighty
Deus omnipotens — El Shaddai
The name under which God appears to Abraham to make his covenant. It is the name of power sufficient to keep a promise no circumstance could keep — which is why it is spoken to a man of ninety-nine who has been promised a son.
Genesis 17 · 1
God Most High
Deus altissimus — El Elyon
The title used by Melchisedech, priest and king, when he blesses Abraham. It sets God above every other power claimed in the ancient world: not the highest of the gods, but the Most High over all that is.
Genesis 14 · 18
The Eternal God
Deus æternus — El Olam
Invoked by Abraham at Beersheba. It names the one who does not begin or end, and to whom the ages are not long.
Genesis 21 · 33
The God Who Sees Me
Deus qui vidisti me — El Roi
Given by Hagar — a slave woman, alone in the desert, pregnant and running away. Hers is often noted as the only name for God in Scripture given by a woman, and it is a name for being noticed when no one else is looking.
Genesis 16 · 13
Lord of Hosts
Dominus exercituum — YHWH Sabaoth
Perhaps the most military of the divine titles, and the one the seraphim use in Isaiah’s vision of the temple. The ‘hosts’ are the armies of heaven and the array of the stars. The Church sings or says it at every Mass in the Sanctus.
Isaias (Isaiah) 6 · 3
The Lord is my Shepherd
Dominus regit me — YHWH Rohi
Perhaps the gentlest title in the Psalter, and deliberately so: the same God whom the seraphim cannot look at leads his people the way a shepherd leads sheep to water.
Psalm 22 (23) · 1
The Lord Our Justice
Dominus justus noster — YHWH Tsidkenu
Jeremiah’s name for the coming king, in whom God’s own righteousness is given to his people rather than merely demanded of them.
Jeremias (Jeremiah) 23 · 6
The Lord is There
Dominus ibidem — YHWH Shammah
The last words of the prophet Ezekiel, and the new name of the restored city. After every exile the promise is not a place with better walls but a place where God is present.
Ezechiel (Ezekiel) 48 · 35
God With Us
Emmanuel
Isaiah’s name for the promised child, quoted by St Matthew at the Nativity. It is the shortest summary of the Christian claim: the greatness of God did not stay at a distance.
Isaias (Isaiah) 7 · 14; Matthew 1 · 23
Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty
Admirabilis, Consiliarius, Deus fortis
The prophetic titles heaped on the child in Isaiah’s great Christmas prophecy, continuing: Pater futuri sæculi, Princeps pacis — the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.
Isaias (Isaiah) 9 · 6
Ruler of All
Pantocrator — Omnipotens
The Greek title that dominates the Apocalypse and the Eastern icons: the one who holds all things in his power. The Latin Creed renders it omnipotentem.
Apocalypse (Revelation) 1 · 8
Alpha and Omega
Alpha et Omega
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, taken as a title: God is the beginning and the end, and everything between is held inside those two letters.
Apocalypse (Revelation) 1 · 8
King of kings and Lord of lords
Rex regum et Dominus dominantium
The title written on the robe of the rider in the Apocalypse. Every earthly authority is placed, by this name, under one that does not end.
Apocalypse (Revelation) 19 · 16
The Light of the World
Lux mundi
Christ’s title for himself in St John. Light is one of the oldest images for God in Scripture, from the first command of creation to the city that needs no sun.
John 8 · 12
The Word
Verbum — Logos
St John’s name for the Son: the utterance of God, eternal, through whom all things were made. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1 · 1
Lamb of God
Agnus Dei
The Baptist’s title for Christ, and the chant the Church sings at the breaking of the Bread, just before Communion. It is the greatness of God expressed as sacrifice — the strangest and most Christian of the divine names.
John 1 · 29
Our Father
Pater noster
The name Christ himself gave when the disciples asked how to pray. After every other title, this is the one the Church prays every day, in the words he taught, and the one that makes all the others bearable.
Luke 11 · 1–2; Matthew 6 · 9
Why the names matter
Read together, the names do something a single definition could not. They move. They begin in fire and unpronounceable mystery and end at Pater noster — a word a child can say. That movement is the whole shape of revelation: the God who cannot be looked at teaches his creatures to call him Father.
The litany of these names is sung in the meditation on His greatness, and the Scriptures behind them are gathered under Bible verses on the greatness of God.
Last reviewed for accuracy on , against the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Church's own documents.