called Barabbas]  Bar Abba.  'Abba,' Father, was used like Padre, Père, Father, &c., as a title of reverence: Lightfoot quotes from the Talmud 'R. Samuel Bar Abba and R. Nathan Bar Abba' (Jer. Gemara, Moed katon, fol. 82, 1), 'Abba Bar Abba (Bab. Gemara, Berachoth, fol. 18, 2), and the shorter forms 'Simeon Bar Ba' (ib. Taanith, fol. 61, 1), 'R. Chaijah Bar Ba' (ib. Chagigah, fol. 76).  Wünsche also says that the name Bar Abba is common in the Talmud.
    But it must be clearly understood that it was only a surname, and I believe,...that, in what Farrar (Life of Christ, ii. 377) calls 'the fearful irony of circumstance,' he also was named Jesus. (A New Commentary on the Historical Books of the New Testament, Nicholson, v.1, 1881)