Reply to Can I name my Jewish daughter Mary?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, if you are still reading, I think you need to consider that your daughter will be her own person and have her own journey toward figuring out her relationship with her Jewish identity.

Please don't make it harder on her by forcing her first interaction with Jewish identity to be explaining that her mom "just liked the name Mary" for her entire childhood. [/quote]

Do you think that the members of the Jewish community here are going to be incessantly asking a small child, "If you're Jewish, how come your name is Mary?!?! :shock: " The members of the Jewish community where I grew up would not have done this.[/quote]

Mine would. [b]I am a poster from above named Katherine. Was always questioned about whether I was really Jewish, was a convert, etc. Still happens today when I introduce myself at shul. [/b]I would not name a Jewish child Mary (or Kristen, Christian, Luke, Noel/Noelle, or other names strongly associated with Christianity ... though would make an exception for Paul since, for some reason, I know a fair number of older Jewish men with this name).

I'm not saying I would only name a child a recognizably Jewish name like Isaac or Benjamin. Just that I wouldn't choose one so strongly associated with Christianity, particularly when there is a Jewish variant, Miriam.[/quote]

I would find a different shul. :( [/quote]

I have attended shuls all over the East Coast and in the midwest and even 2 shuls in Japan -- an Ashkenazi one in Tokyo and a Sephardic one in Kobe. It always happens. Maybe not at a Reform shul, but at Conservative and Orthodox shuls, it happens. Such is life. [/quote]

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