Abenner is best understood as a medieval literary personal name, not as an ordinary Greek word with a transparent meaning. In the Greek Christian romance Barlaam and Ioasaph, Abenner is the pagan king of India and father of the prince Ioasaph. The spelling belongs to the story's long passage through several languages; it does not justify a confident one-line translation.
Meaning and Origin
The immediate form is medieval Greek Αβεννηρ, conventionally written Abenner in English. It names a character rather than describing his occupation, birthplace, or parentage. The best available explanation is therefore contextual: “the name of Ioasaph's father in the Greek Barlaam and Ioasaph tradition.”
The name did not remain unchanged across versions. Ilia V. Abuladze's study, published with David Marshall Lang's translation of the Georgian Balavariani, gives the Georgian king's name as Abenes and records related manuscript forms. Paul Pelliot likewise compared Georgian Abenes or Iabenes, the less certain readings of the corresponding Arabic form, and Greek Abenner. These witnesses support a chain of textual adaptation, but not a recoverable literal meaning for the original name.
Pelliot proposed that the Greek form was reshaped under the influence of Abner, the biblical commander's name. This is plausible because the Greek Old Testament also writes Abner as Αβεννηρ, including at 1 Samuel 14:50–51 in the Rahlfs–Hanhart Septuaginta. That influence concerns the Greek spelling. It does not prove that the legendary king's earlier name was Hebrew or transfer Hebrew Abner's etymology to Abenner in this romance.
How the Greek Form Entered the Story
Barlaam and Ioasaph is a Christianized reworking of narrative material associated with the life of the Buddha. The Norwegian Institute of Philology's research project identifies a tenth-century Arabic text as the earliest surviving version and lists Georgian, Greek, Latin, Armenian, Old Church Slavonic, and Old French among the many later languages of transmission.
The direction and date of the Greek stage are now described more carefully than in older reference works. Nikoloz Aleksidze's chapter on Georgian translation in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature says that the Greek romance was probably translated from the Georgian Balavariani in the late tenth or early eleventh century, likely by Euthymios the Hagiorite. Robert Volk's modern critical edition similarly dates the Greek work to the late tenth century and considers Euthymios of Mount Athos its probable author or adapter. The once-common attribution to the eighth-century John of Damascus is therefore not accepted as secure.
In the Greek story, Abenner tries to prevent his son from encountering suffering and Christianity. Ioasaph nevertheless meets the ascetic Barlaam and converts; Abenner later converts as well. These are events within a hagiographic romance, not evidence for a historical king of India or for a royal genealogy.
Abenner, Abenes, Avenir, and Abner
The spellings should be identified by textual tradition rather than treated as freely interchangeable modern names:
- Abenner is the usual English transliteration of the king's name in the Greek romance.
- Abenes is the form used for the king in the Georgian Balavariani translated by David Marshall Lang.
- Avenir appears in the Old French version by Gui de Cambrai and in Peggy McCracken's modern English translation of that text.
- Abner is the established English form of the biblical name. Its Greek spelling overlaps with Abenner and may have influenced the romance, but the two referents and their histories must still be distinguished.
Consequently, Avenir can be a valid reading clue when the source is a French adaptation, while Abenes points to the Georgian tradition. Neither spelling should silently replace Abenner in a citation to the Greek text.
Personal Name, Not a Documented Dynasty
In the medieval sources discussed here, Abenner functions as the personal name of a literary character. The romance does not demonstrate widespread use of Abenner as a given name in medieval Greece, and it does not document an inherited surname.
A modern person may use Abenner as a given name or family name, but that use needs evidence from modern records. Shared spelling with the legendary king—or with biblical Abner—does not establish descent, ethnicity, or a single family line.
References
- Ilia V. Abuladze, introduction and notes in David Marshall Lang (trans.), *The Balavariani (Barlaam and Josaphat): A Tale from the Christian East*, University of California Press, 1966, especially pp. 35–38.
- Nikoloz Aleksidze, “Georgian,” *The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature*, ed. Stratis Papaioannou, Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 219–226.
- Paul Pelliot, *Notes on Marco Polo*, vol. 1, Imprimerie Nationale, 1959, pp. 590–591.
- Robert Volk (ed.), *Historia animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph (spuria) II: Text und zehn Appendices*, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos 6.2, De Gruyter, 2006.
- Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart (eds.), *Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes*, editio altera, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006; see 1 Samuel 14:50–51.
- Gui de Cambrai, *Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha*, trans. Peggy McCracken, introduction by Donald S. Lopez Jr., Penguin Classics, 2014.
- Norwegian Institute of Philology, “Barlaam and Josaphat: Buddhist Narratives in Islam and Christianity”, research project overview, accessed 5 August 2026.