“Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah…” (Daniel 1:11)
Daniel’s name, which means “God (El) is my Judge,” was changed to Belteshazzr, a name that contains the name of the god, Baal.
Hananiah, meaning “God (Yah) is Gracious”, was changed to Shadrach, which invokes Marduk, chief deitys of Babylon, meaning “bull calf of the sun.” Another interpretation of this name suggests that it invokes Aku, the Babylonian moon god.
Mishael, which means “who is like God (Yah)?” was changed to Meshach, a name honoring the Babylonian version of the goddess, Venus.
Azariah, which means “God (Yah) helps” was changed to Abed-nego, meaning “the slave of Nebo”, the son of Marduk). Some texts contain a variant: Abed-nergal, which means “slave of Nergal,” the god of war and scorched earth.
What is important here is that Daniel and Mishael contain the name of God, El, while another significant divine name, Yah, is embedded in the names of Hannaniah and Azariah. Both of these sacred names for God were deleted from the teenagers’ new names, and replaced with names of Babylonian gods.
Such was the zeal of Nebuchadnezzar to proselytize the Hebrew captives: it was not enough simply to destroy Israel’s capital city and temple. No, it was error’s intention to go much farther, namely to obliterate all traces of Hebrew civilization, especially all remembrance of the invisible God of Abram, who had long ago rejected virtually the same Chaldean gods that Nebuchadnezzar worshiped.
But the Hebrew children stood their ground, refusing to bow to the graven image or submit to Babylon’s aggressive policy of compulsory conversion. Through their indomitable insistence on following the first great commandment in face of the fiery furnace, error’s idiotic intention — to blot out any and all things attesting to the existence of God — was completely reversed and, instead, God was magnified far above all the gods of Babylon, and that Name which is above every name was spread abroad throughout a world that previously had no knowledge of it whatsoever!