onomazō

This verb is built straight on the Greek noun for a name (ὄνομα), and it never strays far from it. It covers the whole life of a name: handing one out, carrying one, saying one aloud, and bringing one up in conversation. No single English verb reaches that far, so translators pick a different word in almost every verse and the thread joining them disappears.

The eleven uses fall into a small, tidy set:

• Someone hands out a name: Jesus picks twelve disciples and names them apostles.
• Someone carries a name: a man who goes by the title of brother in the church.
• Someone says a name aloud at a situation: traveling exorcists pronouncing the name of Jesus over people tormented by evil spirits.
• Someone brings a name up: a sin so ugly that it should never even come up among God's people.

The far more common verb for calling (καλέω) overlaps with it, but that word has a much wider job, covering summoning and inviting as well, and it only sometimes concerns a name. This verb is always about the name itself. When the point is appealing to a name rather than attaching one, Greek usually reaches instead for the verb meaning to call upon (ἐπικαλέω).

Behind the New Testament usage lies the way the Hebrew Scriptures talk about names, where the verb for calling (קָרָא) does much of this same work and having a name called over something marks it as belonging to its owner. That background surfaces in Ephesians 3:15, where every family in heaven and on earth is named from the Father, and in 2 Timothy 2:19, where naming the Lord's name is a declaration of allegiance.