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I am trying to find out, when and where IMMANUEL or it's variants was first used as a (given) name. I know it goes back to Isiah 7, but nobody seems to know who this first Immanuel actually was or if he really existed at all. Early Christianity claims, that Jesus Christ was that "Immanuel" - but I can't find any saints by that name. Was it a taboo name like JESUS? I can understand why Judaism wouldn't take up the name - but the oldest IMMANUEL I could find, was a Jew: IMMANUEL (ben Solomon) OF ROME (known in Italian as Manoello Giudeo—"Immanuel the Jew"; c. 1261–after 1328), poet. (Encyclopedia Judaica).
has anybody heard of an even older IMMANUEL / MANUEL etc.? Maybe in Spain, I would suspect?