I said last week that we have a new granddaughter. Her name is Brita which means bright shining and her middle name is faith so I expect that she will be a woman with a bright shining faith. Sometimes names are chosen because it is in the family while other times the name may be chosen just because it sounds nice. I taught high school so over the 30 plus years I taught I encountered many names, some had meaning, some were next to impossible to pronounce.
One of the students I taught at the college was a Native student who gave his son and Ojibwa name which means gift of God. His name would always remind him of his native heritage and his Christian heritage.
Daniel and his three friends had names that brought attention and honour to their God but when they ended up in Babylon they were given names that honoured the name of the Babylonian gods. There is a hint that even though the cooperated and took Babylonian names they were not totally happy with that. Daniel held unto his Hebrew name and instead of naming one Abednebo, to honour the god Nebo, it was changed to Abednego.
It would be the same as if your name was Christian and a Muslim nation took you captive and renamed you Mohammad. Apparently Daniel and his friends did not feel that this was a hill to die on. Part of their cooperation, but not compromise, with the foreign nation was to accept foreign names. Why? I am not sure.
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