A short answer first
A biblical name is a name with a specific, identifiable connection to the text of Scripture. The trouble is that “connection to Scripture” is not one thing. Some names belong to a person the Bible describes and names. Some name a place, a word, or a virtue that appears in the text but never as a person. Some are later forms of a scriptural name rather than the form printed in standard translations. And some appear only in books whose canonical status differs between Christian traditions. Each of these is a different sense of “biblical,” and the site keeps them apart.
This is the first of the two axes ChristianNames.org uses to classify every name. Axis A asks only about a name’s relationship to Scripture. A separate question, a name’s relationship to Christian tradition, is handled on its own axis and covered in what is a Christian name?. The two do not always line up, which is why the site does not treat “biblical” and “Christian” as the same word. That distinction is drawn out in biblical name vs Christian name.
A named person in Scripture
The clearest case is a name borne by a named person, or a named angel, in the Bible. Elijah is the prophet of 1 and 2 Kings. Mary is the mother of Jesus in the Gospels. These names are not biblical because they sound old or carry a certain register; they are biblical because a specific person in the text is called by them. The site labels this the direct biblical person status, and it is the category most people have in mind when they say “biblical name.”
Because these figures appear in the books shared by Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox canons, their status does not depend on which Bible a family reads. You can follow either name to its figure page, Elijah or Mary, for the scriptural detail. The wider set is gathered under biblical boy names and, for the Hebrew Scriptures specifically, Old Testament names.
A place, a word, or a concept
A name can occur in Scripture without ever naming a person. Grace and Faith are the common examples. Both words run through the biblical text, but as theological concepts, not as the names of characters. No one in the Bible is named Grace. The word appears; the person does not.
The site calls this the biblical word or concept status, and it is a real connection to Scripture, just a different one from a named person. Names of this kind were mostly adopted much later, when English-speaking Christians began using virtue words as given names. They are grouped under virtue names, and the naming pattern behind them is covered in Christian virtue names. Calling Grace biblical is accurate as long as you mean the concept, not a person.
A figure who depends on the canon
Some named figures appear only in books whose canonical status differs between traditions. The archangel Raphael is named in the Book of Tobit, which Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include and Protestant Bibles place in the Apocrypha or omit. Whether Raphael counts as a biblical person therefore depends on which canon you are working from.
The site marks these as canon-dependent rather than forcing them into a single answer, because the honest answer is “it depends on the tradition.” This is not a small technicality; it decides whether several angel and Old Testament figures are in or out. The full treatment is in deuterocanonical and apocryphal names.
A later form of a biblical name
A name can descend from a scriptural name without being the form that appears in standard translations. Magdalene comes from Mary Magdalene, but “Magdalene” is a place-based epithet, from Magdala, rather than a personal name printed as such in most English Bibles. The connection to Scripture is real; it just runs through a variant or an epithet rather than a headword.
The site labels this the biblical form or variant status. It keeps the strong scriptural link visible while being honest that the exact form is a step removed from the translated text.
Not in Scripture, and why that is not a judgment
Agnes and Ambrose are not biblical names. Neither appears in Scripture as a person, a place, or a word. Agnes is a Roman martyr; Ambrose is a Doctor of the Church. Their standing in Christian history is deep, and both are covered in early Christian saint names, but that standing is heritage, not Scripture.
Saying a name is “not in Scripture” is a factual claim about one axis, not a ranking. It carries no verdict about how Christian a name is. Agnes and Ambrose are strongly Christian names that happen not to be biblical, and holding those two facts together without confusion is the whole point of separating the axes.
This page draws on the biblical text in Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox canons, standard reference works on given names, and the canon distinctions set out by each tradition. For how the site sources claims and assigns each name a status on this axis, see the methodology page.