You are strongly recommended to add to your library the excellent revised edition of Harper's Bible Dictionary titled, The Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, Revised Edition [book review], edited by Paul J. Achtemeier, with the Society of Biblical Literature (NY: Harper Collins, 1996). It is currently the best one-volume Bible dictionary in English, and it is available at Border's Books, Christian Science Reading Rooms, http://www.borders.com, or http://www.christianbook.com.

Shadrach, the Babylonian name given to Hananiah, one of Daniel’s three companions (Dan. 1:7), subsequently thrown into the fiery furnace. The etymology is uncertain. It has been taken as a deliberate pejorative variation of Marduk, god of Babylon.

Hananiah (Heb., ‘God has favored me [with a child]’), a name borne by at least ten biblical personages. Two are well known. 1 Hananiah, the son of Azur, who died for falsely prophesying against Jeremiah (Jer. 28). 2 Hananiah, also called Shadrach, one of Daniel’s three friends who was miraculously saved from the fiery furnace (Dan. 1-3).