← Glossary · Named giants (glossary) · All races · Nephilim
Giants appear across scripture, the Qumran scrolls, myth and saga, ancient historiography, and the modern medical record. This section lists the ones that are named — the individuals a source actually calls by name — and keeps each one tied to the kind of source it rests on.
The source class is the point of the page. A giant named in Genesis, a giant named in a Qumran fragment, a giant reported by Pliny, and a man measured by physicians at Washington University are four different kinds of claim, and mixing them is how this subject usually goes wrong. Heights are shown as recorded by that source, in that source’s own units, never converted into an assertion of fact. Where two traditions give different figures for the same person — Goliath is the standard case — both are shown.
Every card carries two icons: opens that giant’s own page, and opens the glossary definition.
For giant races and lineages rather than individuals (Nephilim, Anakim, Rephaim, Emim, Zamzumim, Gibborim), see All races. For the Watchers named as the fathers of the Nephilim — Shemihazah, Azazel and the rest of the two hundred — see Fallen Angels and Grigori / Watchers.
Named in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament canon. Heights are given only where the text gives them, in the text’s own units.
Also known as: Goliath of Gath
Lineage: Rephaim (Philistine champion) · race detail
Where & when: Gath, Philistia · c. 11th century BC
Stature as recorded: Masoretic Text: six cubits and a span (about 9 ft 9 in / 2.97 m). Septuagint, 4QSam-a and Josephus: four cubits and a span (about 6 ft 9 in / 2.06 m)
References: 1 Samuel 17:4-7; 2 Samuel 21:19; 1 Chronicles 20:5
Also known as: Og king of Bashan
Lineage: Rephaim · race detail
Where & when: Bashan, Transjordan (Ashtaroth and Edrei) · c. 13th century BC
Stature as recorded: Bed of iron nine cubits long and four cubits wide (about 13 ft 6 in by 6 ft / 4.1 m by 1.8 m)
References: Numbers 21:33-35; Deuteronomy 3:1-11; Joshua 12:4; Psalm 135:11
Also known as: Anak son of Arba
Lineage: Anakim (eponym) · race detail
Where & when: Hebron, Canaan · c. 15th-13th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated; the spies reported "we were in our own sight as grasshoppers"
References: Numbers 13:22, 13:28, 13:33; Joshua 15:13-14; Judges 1:20
Also known as: Arba father of Anak
Lineage: Anakim · race detail
Where & when: Kiriath-arba (Hebron), Canaan · c. 16th-15th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated; called "the greatest man among the Anakim"
References: Joshua 14:15; Joshua 15:13; Joshua 21:11
Lineage: Anakim (son of Anak) · race detail
Where & when: Hebron, Canaan · c. 15th-13th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated
References: Numbers 13:22; Joshua 15:14; Judges 1:10
Lineage: Anakim (son of Anak) · race detail
Where & when: Hebron, Canaan · c. 15th-13th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated
References: Numbers 13:22; Joshua 15:14; Judges 1:10
Also known as: Talmai son of Anak
Lineage: Anakim (son of Anak) · race detail
Where & when: Hebron, Canaan · c. 15th-13th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated
References: Numbers 13:22; Joshua 15:14; Judges 1:10
Also known as: Ishbibenob
Lineage: Rephaim (sons of the Rapha) · race detail
Where & when: Philistia · c. 10th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated; bronze spearhead weighing 300 shekels (about 7.5 lb / 3.4 kg)
References: 2 Samuel 21:16-17
Also known as: Sippai
Lineage: Rephaim (sons of the Rapha) · race detail
Where & when: Gob / Gezer, Philistia · c. 10th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated
References: 2 Samuel 21:18; 1 Chronicles 20:4
Also known as: Lahmi the brother of Goliath
Lineage: Rephaim (sons of the Rapha) · race detail
Where & when: Gath, Philistia · c. 10th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated; spear shaft "like a weaver's beam"
References: 1 Chronicles 20:5; compare 2 Samuel 21:19
Also known as: Nimrod son of Cush
Lineage: Gibborim (mighty one) · race detail
Where & when: Shinar / Mesopotamia · Post-Flood antiquity
Stature as recorded: Not stated in the Hebrew; the Septuagint renders gibbor as gigas ("giant")
References: Genesis 10:8-12; 1 Chronicles 1:10; Micah 5:6
Also known as: Sihon king of the Amorites
Lineage: Amorite king (giant by tradition)
Where & when: Heshbon, Transjordan · c. 13th century BC
Stature as recorded: Not stated in scripture; rabbinic midrash makes him Og's brother and of like stature
References: Numbers 21:21-31; Deuteronomy 2:24-37; Psalm 136:19
76 named giants on record · 19 resting on a first-hand examination or eyewitness report. Select a class to filter.
Unnamed giants. This page lists names. Scripture also describes giants it does not name — the six-fingered man of Gath (2 Samuel 21:20), the four sons of the Rapha as a group, the Emim and Zamzumim as peoples. Those belong with the races and lineages, not here.
Unnamed skeleton reports. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century newspaper accounts of giant skeletons in burial mounds, and the red-haired Si-Te-Cah of Paiute oral tradition associated with Lovelock Cave, Nevada, describe peoples and finds rather than named individuals, and almost none survive independent verification. They are not listed as named giants.
Fiction. Figures invented for literature or advertising — Paul Bunyan among them — are excluded. The one fabrication that is listed, the Cardiff Giant, appears under historiography because the fraud itself is a documented historical event with a paper trail, and because the most famous American giant being a carved block of gypsum is the single most useful fact on this page.
Map of Named Giants All races Nephilim Grigori / Watchers Fallen Angels Glossary