From the noun קין (qyn) spear, from the verb קין (qyn), to put together or forge, and means “acquired” in Hebrew. In Old Testament Genesis, Cain is the first son of Adam and Eve. He killed his brother Abel after GOD accepted Abel’s meat offering instead of his plant food offering. After this Cain was banished for being a wanderer.

A popular theory regarding Cain’s name connects him to the verb “kana” (קנה qnh), which means “to obtain” and is used by Eve in Genesis 4, 1 when she says, after giving birth to Cain, “I have obtained a man from the LORD.” In one of the Legends of the Hebrews, Cain is the fruit of a union between Eve and Satan, who is also the angel Samael and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Eve exclaims at Cain’s birth, “I have obtained a man through an angel of the LORD.

In the Greek New Testament, the name Cain is spelled Καιν (Hebrews 11, 4 ; 1John 3, 12 ; Jude 1, 11).

There are also a town (Joshua 15, 57) and a people (Numbers 24, 22) named קין but translations commonly transliterate these as Kain or Kenite instead of Cain.

Qābīl and Hābīl (Arabic: قَابِيْل وَهَابِيْل‎, Cain and Abel) are believed by Muslims to have been the first two sons of Adam and Hawwaʾ (Eve) mentioned in the Qurʾan.

The events of the story in the Qur’an (Qur 5, 27) are virtually the same as the Hebrew Bible narrative: Both the brothers were asked to offer up individual sacrifices to GOD. But the LORD accepted Abel’s sacrifice and rejected Cain’s, out of jealousy, Cain slew Abel, the first ever case of murder committed upon the Earth.