Jewish naming traditions Q
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Anonymous
| I grew up in a very Jewish area and have always wondered this- why do Jewish people name babies with only the first letter of the person they’re honoring? Like if they’re honoring Myron they only use the letter M. Why not just name the baby Myron? Have people always done this or is it new because they didn’t like the old fashioned or Yiddish names? (I have asked my Jewish friends and they just shrugged) |
Anonymous
| I always thought you honor the deceased family member using the initial or the name if you prefer, and if it applies. I named my son using the initial “b” for a boys name after my grandmother’s b girls name. |
Anonymous
| Sometimes babies are given the full name if the parents like it. |
Anonymous
|
OP, it is a kind of modernization/flexibility thing, although it's not out of disdain for older/Yiddish names, so much as it's considered pretty much the same name if you use the same first initial. Maybe that has roots in having both a Hebrew and other (Yiddish, English, German, Russian) name, sometimes with the same first letter. IDK.
Of course you only name after a dead relative. Well, I think you're allowed, religiously speaking, to use a live person's name, but it's a specifically Ashkenazi thing to name (initial) after only a recently deceased relative, and it's superstitious according to my family. Like if you give the child the dead person's name, the evil eye (etc. kinahora) might mistakenly kill them, since they're supposed to be dead. Or not that, exactly, but something along those lines, like bad luck/form. |
Anonymous
| Because how do you name your newborn son Bertha? You don’t. You name him Benjamin after Bertha. |
Anonymous
Robert or Albert would technically make more sense. The tradition is good though. It gives people more options. |
Anonymous
| Idk, why do we eat gefilte fish still? It's just... tradition! |
Anonymous
Makes no sense. |
Anonymous
| Related question: is it typical that my Jewish friend named her girls as 1) girl #1 has the mother's middle name (but the common nickname version, not commonly used as a full name) 2) girl #2 has mom's first name but with a different spelling |
Anonymous
Sounds like your friend just loves her mom and her mom's names. |
Anonymous
Sorry, to clarify, the children are named after the children's mother. My friend named the kids after herself. For some reason I thought Jewish tradition was not to name your kids after living people. |
Anonymous
| We named my son after my grandmother. In his case his name appears to be the male version of the female name, not just the first letter. Think Michael/Michelle. When he had his bris we gave him my grandfather's Hebrew name. |
Anonymous
| My friends say it is bad luck in Jewish tradition to actually use the name of the dead relative. |
Anonymous
| Great-grandma names are coming back. MyXH wanted to use the actual name, but I nixed that as she was a horrible woman. |
Anonymous
| When we were naming our kids, our conservative rabbi said we could just give our kids (twins) the same Hebrew names as the people we were naming them after and their American names didn’t matter. So we picked names we liked and the Hebrew names are the same as the people who died. |