The "B" Word: Barack, Baruch, Benediction and Blessing

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Barack = Baruch = Mubarak ~ = Benedict (but all are "Blessed")

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Some were sceptical when Barack Obama told Jewish voters that his first name had the same Semitic root as Hebrew "Baruch," meaning "A blessing." [1] Although further speculation (not by Obama) that Barack was related to Latin "Benedict" was bogus, the American Heritage  Dictionary of the English Language bore out Barack's claim.

Both the Hebrew and the Arabic stem from the same Western Semitic root, BRK:

"BRK. West Semitic, to bless. Probably a metathesized *  variant of krb. 1. Baruch, from Hebrew brûk, blessed, passive participle of *brak, to bless (only attested in derived stem brk, to bless). 2. broker, from Arabic al-barka, colloquial variant of al-baraka, the blessing, divine favor, gift, from braka, to bless." [2]

Barack is also related to the Arabic name, "Mubarak" (e.g., Egypt's Hosni Mubarak). The Mu- prefix renders the passive meaning of "Blessed."

Although "Benedict" also means "blessed," similar meaning (and vague remblance of the sounds) hardly amount to a common origin. Latin Benedictus is the masculine past participle of benedcere, "to bless," from bene, "well" and dcere, "to say" [3] ("Benedicta" is the feminine form, transformed to "Benedetta" in modern Italian). 

Latin benedcere really had two separate meanings: to bless and to use words of good omen. [4]

Similar in form to the Latin word  is Greek eulogein ("I praise" = eu - "well, good" plus logein "to say"). English "eulogy" ("praise"), however, is the misbegotten descendant of a Late Latin word, eulogium -- a confusion of Classical Latin elogium ("a maxim, inscrioption") with  unrelated Greek eulogía ("praise"). [5]  "Elegy" (a poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person or similar musical piece) is a bird of yet another feather, from French élégie, which derives from Latin elega, in turn from Greek elegeia, from the plural of elegeion ("elegiac distich"), from elegos ("song, mournful song"). Whew! [6]

Latin and Greek are Indo-European language unrelated to Semitic Hebrew and Arabic (two other languages of scripture, none the less).

Yiddish, the traditional language of European Ashkenazi Jews, did borrow bentschen ("blessing") from their French neighbors in the Middle Ages. Bentschen ultimately derives from the same Latin roots as "Benedictus." This Yiddish word is close to the Shakespearean "benison" and Chaucher's "benyson" -- both also borrowed from French.
"Benediction" is a "learned" Latin form introduced later into English. [7]