The New Commentary on the Whole Bible, editors J.D. Douglas, Philip W. Comfort, brings up the interesting possibility that Simeon called Niger who appears in Acts 13:1 is the same person as Simon of Cyrene mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels as the man who helped Jesus carry His cross.  I believe this is true, though I’ve yet to see anything beyond a couple of quick cross-references as to how we can come to that conclusion.  Probably no one has written much about it because it doesn’t really matter.

Anyway, here goes:

First of all, to explain the difference in the names, Simeon and Simon are alternate spellings of the same name.

Everything we know about Simon who carried the cross is summed up in this verse from Mark:

Mark 15:21 (NKJV) Then they compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out of…