Junia Meaning in the Bible

Junia is a Latin name, the feminine of Junius, most likely connected to the goddess Juno — from whose name we also get the month of June. It was a common Roman name; hundreds of inscriptions attest it, and no clear ancient evidence exists for a masculine 'Junias,' which matters for how the verse has been read.

Romans 16:7 is the whole of her appearance: 'Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.' Four things are packed into one sentence — she was Paul's kinswoman, she had been imprisoned for the faith, she was well known among the apostles, and she was a Christian earlier than Paul himself, which places her conversion within a handful of years of the resurrection.

The KJV reads 'Junia,' feminine, as did the early church almost unanimously; John Chrysostom in the fourth century wrote admiringly, 'how great the wisdom of this woman must have been, that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle.' Some later manuscripts and translations rendered it as a masculine 'Junias,' a form with no independent attestation, and most modern critical editions have returned to Junia.

As a modern name Junia is uncommon in English but growing among families drawn to Romans 16 — a chapter that names twenty-nine people, ten of them women. It has a soft, classical sound close to Julia and June without their saturation.