other

names of Shlomo HaMelech

שלמה · ידידיה · קהלת · אגור · יקה · איתיאל

Bottom line

Two of the twenty-four books open by ascribing themselves to Shlomo, Shir HaShirim and Mishlei, and a third, Koheles, ascribes itself to Koheles son of David, king of Yerushalayim, whom tradition identifies as Shlomo; that gives three names, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, the early Amora, adds four more, for seven in all: Shlomo, Yedidyah, Koheles, and the four proper names in the last two chapters of Mishlei, Agur, Yakeh, Isiel and Lemuel. Three of them turn on completeness and peace (Shlomo, from shalem or shalom), three on gathering and giving out wisdom (Koheles and Agur gather; Yakeh spits out), and Isiel and Lemuel both record what he said to himself about the Torah's limits on a king. The one thing not to get wrong: Agur, Yakeh, Isiel and Lemuel read on the surface as ordinary proper names, and every English translation of Mishlei treats them so; the Midrashic identification is a second layer, not a replacement.

At a glance

Hebrew	translit	English	what sets it apart
שלמה	Shlomo	Shlomo	shalem, he completed the Mikdash; or shalom (Targum Sheini)
ידידיה	Yedidyah	friend of Hashem	given by Nosson HaNavi (Shmuel II 12:24-25); Menachos 53
קהלת	Koheles	Koheles	gathered people (Melachim I 8:1), or gathered wisdom (Rashi)
אגור	Agur	Agur	agar, amassed wisdom; Mishlei 30:1
יקה	Yakeh	Yakeh	heikiah, spat out: lost wisdom, or rejected falsehood (Ralbag)
איתיאל	Isiel	Isiel	iti El, "with me is the power"; Mishlei 30:1
למואל	Lemuel	Lemuel	nam la'El, he spoke to Hashem; Mishlei 31:1
עלוקה	Alukah	Alukah	a leech, drinking in wisdom (the Rid); denied by Tosafos

Where the authorities disagree

What Shlomo means. The Midrash reads it from shalem, complete, because he oversaw the completion of the Beis HaMikdash. Targum Sheini reads it from shalom, because peace and quiet were to prevail for Israel in his days, which is how the prophecy given to David before the birth puts it (Divrei HaYamim I 22:9). Both stand; Midrash Agur (§4) leans on the second when it counts Shlomo, Koheles and Agur his three most precious names, all three alluding to the peace of his reign.

Why Koheles. The Midrash: because his teachings were delivered in gatherings, from hakhel, kahal, kehillah, as it says "then Shlomo gathered" (Melachim I 8:1). Rashi (to Koheles 1:1): because he gathered up many forms of wisdom into himself. The second reading pairs Koheles with Agur as two words for the same act, which is what Midrash Agur does.

Whether Yakeh is a reproach or a compliment. The Midrashim take it as a reproach: he was filled with wisdom and later spat it out (heikiah) and forgot it all when he began to stray, like a bowl that can be filled with water and just as easily emptied. Ralbag (to Mishlei 30:1) takes it as praise: he spits out, that is, rejects, the sayings that are untrue, and sets down in Mishlei only what is left. A third view has him regurgitating to the public whatever wisdom he had amassed. The Bottom line leaves all three in play, since they read the same verb in opposite directions and the choice is a matter of derashah.

What Lemuel means. Four readings, and they split sharply.

The Midrash: nam la'El, he spoke to Hashem, saying he could take more horses, silver and wives than a king may (Devarim 17:16-17) and still not sin. As the commentaries explain, the NUN of nam becomes a LAMED, the two letters being interchangeable, both counted among the dentals along with DALET, TES and TAV.
A second version of that Midrash, sharper still: lamah li El, "what do I need Hashem for", a king throwing off the yoke of Heaven.
Ibn Ezra (to Mishlei 31:1): lemo El, "to them, El", because in his days Israel served Hashem alone and no other.
Ralbag: "for Him, El", his election as Hashem's chosen king. Rashi (to Sanhedrin 70b and Mishlei 31:1) is close: "for him, for Hashem", that his deeds and his wisdom should go into Hashem's service and nowhere else.

The Bottom line keeps the Midrashic reading first, since it is what puts the name on the list of seven at all, and records the rest.

Whether Alukah is an eighth name. Rabbi Yishaya of Trani (the Rid) reads Alukah at Mishlei 30:15, literally a leech, as another name for Shlomo, who sucked up and drank in every form of wisdom. Tosafos (to Eruvin 19a) and Tosafos and Tosafos Shantz (to Avodah Zarah 17a) grant that Alukah is somebody's name but hold it cannot be Shlomo's, precisely because it is not one of the seven the Midrash lists. The Bottom line follows Tosafos and keeps the count at seven.

Distinctions

Shlomo (שלמה) and Yedidyah (ידידיה)

The two names given him by people: Shlomo by his parents, David and Batsheva, and Yedidyah by Nosson HaNavi (Shmuel II 12:24-25). Shlomo was already fixed by prophecy before he was born (Divrei HaYamim I 22:9). Yedidyah literally means friend of Hashem, and he was one. The Gemara (Menachos 53) reads a cryptic saying through it: "may the friend, son of the friend, come and build the friend for the friend, in the portion of the friend, so the friends will be atoned." Six yedidim, each from its own pasuk: Shlomo (Shmuel II 12:25), descendant of Avraham (Yirmiyahu 11:15), building the Beis HaMikdash (Tehillim 84:2) for Hashem (Yeshayahu 5:1), in the portion of Binyamin (Devarim 33:12), so that Israel (Yirmiyahu 12:7) be atoned. Both names, read this way, point at the Mikdash.

Koheles (קהלת) and Agur (אגור)

The two gathering names, one from ק-ה-ל and one from א-ג-ר. Midrash Agur (§4) puts them beside Shlomo as his three most precious names, because gathering is what his reign was: the whole nation gathered together and no strife among them.

Yakeh (יקה), Isiel (איתיאל) and Lemuel (למואל)

The three names attached to the closing chapters of Mishlei, and the three that carry the account of how Shlomo reasoned about a king's limits. Isiel is read as a compound of iti, with me, and el in the sense of power: the Torah warns a king against many horses, much silver and gold, and many wives (Devarim 17:16-17), and Shlomo held that with him was the strength not to be turned by them. In the end he was not able to hold the excess and remain what was expected of him. Lemuel records the same reasoning as speech addressed to Hashem, and Yakeh records what it cost him.

Rendering guidance

In the body of Mishlei, translate the four as plain proper names: "the words of Agur son of Yakeh," "the words of Lemuel the king." Substituting "Shlomo" for them silently makes the Midrash into the text.
Trap: English "gathered" will take hakhel, kahal and agar alike, which is fine when the point is that the names converge, and wrong when a derashah turns on which word a given name is built from. Where both names appear, keep Koheles to assembling people and Agur to amassing wisdom.
Yedidyah is best left transliterated with a gloss at first mention, "friend of Hashem", which is how the column renders it; the Anglicised "Jedidiah" reads foreign in a sefer.
Where a passage plays heikiah against Yakeh, English needs the same verb twice: "spat out" for both, or the wordplay disappears.
For the other Midrashic name-clusters see names-moshe-yered-avigdor-yekusiel.md and names-yosef-yehosef-avreich-tzafnas-paneach.md.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Solomon's Seven Names," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 18 Adar I 5779 (2019-02-23): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8149-solomons-seven-names.md. Primary loci: Shmuel II 12:24-25; Divrei HaYamim I 22:9; Melachim I 8:1; Koheles 1:1 with Rashi; Mishlei 30:1, 30:15, 31:1, 31:4; Devarim 17:16-17, 33:12; Yirmiyahu 11:15, 12:7; Yeshayahu 5:1; Tehillim 84:2; Menachos 53; Sanhedrin 70b with Rashi; Tosafos to Eruvin 19a; Tosafos and Tosafos Shantz to Avodah Zarah 17a; Ralbag and Ibn Ezra to Mishlei 30:1 and 31:1; Targum Sheini; Midrash Agur §4. The seven-name tradition is given in the name of the early Amora Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. The column glosses Yedidyah as "friend of G-d," and this entry follows that gloss; the words: block still carries "beloved of Hashem" and has not been touched.