David Clark (in The Bible Translator 2013, p. 54ff. ) writes this about the translation of “Niger” in Acts 13:1 into various languages: “(…) Difficulty arose with handling Symeon’s second name (or nickname?), ‘Niger.’ As Good News Bible indicates with ‘called the Black,’ this name carries a meaning, and some translators may decide that in such a case a translation of the meaning is more relevant than a transcription of the spelling. It is interesting that in this case, Niger is a Latin word which is retained in the Greek text and is not translated into Greek, as it easily could have been. Perhaps the fact that the Latin name was used even in a predominantly Greek-speaking cultural context is an indication that Symeon came from an area where Latin was more commonly spoken, such as North Africa. As to the significance of this name or nick- name, one can only speculate. It could well reflect Symeon’s ethnic origin: he might have been a black man either from Africa himself or of African descent, presumably through his father. He might perhaps just have had a darker complexion than most of his fellows. Or Niger might have been a completely irrational nickname for which there was no remembered explanation. The fact that Symeon is mentioned next to ‘Lucius of Cyrene,’ who explicitly came from North Africa and also has a Latin name, suggests (though it does not prove) that Symeon may have been from that area too.

In Kalmyk, the translators considered translating the meaning of the name, but eventually decided that for readers with no Christian tradition, it was simpler just to transcribe the Latin form into the modified Cyrillic script that the language uses (Нигер), with no footnote or other explanation. In Yakut, where there is an Orthodox Christian tradition, the decision was to keep Niger, but to add an explanatory phrase ‘that is, Black.’ In Kahua and Tachelhit a similar explanatory phrase was included. In Mal, the translators discussed the possibility of translating Niger not by the Mal word for ‘black’ but by the Thai word for black (dam / ดำ), which happens to have become a nickname in Mal whereas the Mal word has not. In the end they decided to retain the form Niger, adapted to the phonology of Mal.”