In Jewish tradition, he was called "the Horonite," (another possible "the Harranite") and was associated with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian.
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Eberhard Schrader, cited in Brown Driver Briggs, considered that the name in Neo-Assyrian Aramaic was Sîn-uballit, from the name of the Sumerian moon god Sîn meaning "Sîn has begotten." (The name of the moon god Sîn in the context of Sanballat's name has since been mistakenly confused with the unrelated English noun sin in some popular English commentaries on Nehemiah).