What is the meaning of kal-el Superman's kryptonian name?

Answer 1

It has been speculated that the name Kal-El resembles a Hebrew word ( קל-אל ) that literally translated means "easy to", but can be interpreted to mean "Voice of God." By the mythology of the story, Superman's Kryptonian name means Kal of the house of El. Some suggest that Siegel and Shuster, the originators of the character being Jewish allowed that to enter into their development of the story, however, after finding it difficult to locate a publisher, and after Shuster burned the original copy, Siegel contacted other writers to further help develop the story. Seigel and Shuster eventually did rejoin their efforts, and eventually were able to get published 18 April, 1928 in Action Comics, over five years after the inspiration was born.

There were countless elements of society beyond the ethnicity of the originators. The world after the great depression obviously played a huge role in Superman's development. Having been raised in a post World War 1 world played a role. The events of World War 2 had a hand in later development of the story and characters. As well as other fiction from the time.

We essentially have very few words from the stories of Superman that appear as Kryptonian. Jor-El, Kal-El, Zod, and a handful of other names are about the extent, and this small sampling is far too little to help distill any potential meaning. Neither Siegel nor Shuster appear to have ever spoken on the subject, so the best that can result from an examination can only be supposition.