Right up until the destruction of their city [in 146 BC], Carthaginian parents still named their offspring from the same narrow pool as their ancestors had done, based on the names of Phoenician gods….The most famous Carthaginian name of all, Hannibal, means “The Grace of Baal,” while another popular one, Bodaštart, translates into “In the Hands of Astarte” (the Punic goddess of fertility). Names may also have been chosen for more precise meanings, such as the woman Abibaal (“My Father is Baal”), whose mother, Arišut-Ba’al (“Object of Desire of Baal”), may have been a temple prostitute of a priestess at the temple of the god.
—Richard Miles, Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization (Viking, New York, 2010), p 18