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Etymology •
& Meaning •
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Meaning and etymology of the Hebrew names
Gog and Magog
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Gog 
Magog 
Magog is a son of Japheth, son of Noah (Genesis 10:2). Later this name came to denote a region (Ezekiel 38:2).
Magog is often mentioned in conjunction with Gog and Gog is the name of a Reubenite (1 Chronicles 5:4), but later also the name of a certain prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal (literally the Chief Prince of the Occupied Zone that is The World - Ezekiel 38).
John the Revelator sees Gog and Magog - "the nations which are in the four corners of the earth" - gathered up by satan for the final battle (Rev 20:8). This is remarkable because Daniel sees a vision of a male goat whose one horn becomes four horns towards the four winds of heaven, which may allude to a world-wide altar (Daniel 8:8).
The altar on which continuously incense burned (see Ephesians 5:2) had horns on its four corners (Exodus 38:2) and Daniel also speaks of the defilement of the altar (11:31, 32). The male goat is explained to be Greece (8:21), or Javan in Hebrew. Javan was a son of Japheth, and a brother of Magog, Meshech and Tubal (Genesis 10:2).
The name Magog is the name Gog with a prefixed mem, which may be a particle of inquisition:  (me), what, or  (mi), who? Or it may come from the particle  (min ; often abbreviated to a single mem), meaning from.
Gog is probably derived from the Hebrew word  (gag), usually meaning roof, housetop, or (as HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament puts it) the highest point of an edifice.
The word denotes most commonly the flat roof of a building on which things can take place (1 Samuel 9:25-26; 2 Samuel 11:2; Judge 16:27; Joshua 2:6; Jeremiah 19:13; but also Acts 10:9). The housetop seems to indicate a certain spiritual exposure. Someone on the housetop opens himself for something, preferable something soothing, or higher.
Because we've already linked God and Magog to the altar of incense (see above), the most remarkable usage is in Exodus 30:3 and 37:26 where denotes the top of the altar of incense (HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament reads Ezekiel 30:3 and 37:26, which is a typo).
Gog may be a region, and Magog is then said to mean From Gog (BDB Theological Dictionary). But Ezekiel 38:2 speaks of a man named Gog who is of the land of Magog (= the land of the land of Gog), which seems overly redundant. Magog may rather mean Off The Roof, which means more in English than in Hebrew. Possibly, the rooftop is semi-synonymous to a place of worship, especially pagan worship, and Magog denotes that same inclination.
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