 The root of the name "Cartaphilus" can be divided into "kartos" and "philos", which can be translated roughly as "dearly" and "loved", connecting the Legend of the Wandering Jew to "the disciple whom Jesus loved".At least from the 17th century, the name "Ahasver" has been given to the Wandering Jew, apparently adapted from Ahasuerus 'Xerxes', the Persian king in the Book of Esther, who was not a Jew, and whose very name among medieval Jews was an "exemplum" of a fool.This name may have been chosen because the Book of Esther describes the Jews as a persecuted people, scattered across every province of Ahasuerus' vast empire, similar to the later Jewish diaspora in countries whose state and/or majority religions were forms of Christianity.