... Early did tradition fix the number of the Magi at three, probably in allusion to the three races of man descended from the sons of Noah, and soon they were said to be descendants of the Mesopotamian prophet Balaam, from whom they derived the expectation of the Star of Jacob, and they were promoted to be kings of Tarsus, Saba, and Nubia, also to have been baptized by St. Thomas, and afterwards martyred.  Their corpses were supposed to be at that store-house of relics, Constantinople, whence the Empress Helena caused them to be transported to Milan by an Italian, from whom a noble family at Florence obtained the surname of Epiphania.  Frederick Barbarossa carried them to Cologne.
    By the eleventh century, these three kings had received names, for they are found written over against their figures in a painting of that date, and occur in the breviary of Mersburg.  Though their original donor is unknown, their Oriental sound makes it probable that he was a pilgrim-gatherer of Eastern legends.  Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, are not according to European fancy, and are not easy to explain.  The first may either be the Persian, gendshber (treasure master), or else be taken from the red or green stone called yashpah in the East, ἵασπις in Greek, jasper in Latin.  This was the only one of these names ever used in England, where it was once common.  Gasparde is the French feminine; in English the masculine is Jasper... (History of Christian Names, Yonge, 1884)