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Friday June 14, 2002

Arik to Ze'ev, Internet offers wealth of baby names

Mark Mietkiewicz

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Arik, Ilan, Yarkon, Ze'ev. Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah. Shachar, Revital, Raya, Lilach.

Whether you want to give your baby a biblical name or use something a bit less traditional, there is a wealth of suggestions waiting for you on the Jewish Internet. Today, I would like to tour some of those sites and look at Jewish baby naming customs.

According to tradition, the choice of a Jewish name has great significance. Philadelphia's Cantor Mark Kirshblum puts it very well: "The name of a person describes his or her essence. It provides identity and generational connection. It begins the process of shaping a human being. Choosing a name empowers parents with creativity, just as G-d empowered Adam when He assigned him the first independent human act, the task of naming the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and every living thing...A name can be a portent for the future or a wish that the person live up to the potential expressed in the meaning of the name. It is important, therefore, to give much thought to a child's shem kodesh, sacred or Hebrew name." Visit Kirshblum's Web site at members.aol.com/ cantork/naming.htm

One of the most popular sources of Jewish names is after a relative. Rabbi Paysach Krohn writes, "When a child is named after the deceased, the latter's soul is elevated to a higher realm in heaven and a spiritual affinity is created between the soul of the departed and the soul of the newborn child. That deep spiritual bond between these two souls can have a profound impact on the child." Read more about the religious considerations of naming a child at www.aish.com/literacy/lifecycle/Whats_In_A_Name$.asp

Although Sephardim may honor a living family member by naming a child after him or her, Ashkenazi Jews do not follow the same practice. The Ritual Reality Web site at www.ritualr.com/hebrewnames.htm provides useful explanations of differences in tradition. For example, Ashkenazi "rarely name children after living relatives, probably dating from a superstition of the Middle Ages to avoid having the Angel of Death take the newborn child instead of the aging relative it was named for by mistake."

Many Jewish names come from biblical sources. Lisa Katz points out at www.judaism.about.com /library/weekly/aa013000a.htm that there are about 2,800 names mentioned in the Bible but only about 5 percent of those names are used today. Aside from relatives and the Torah, there is no shortage of other places to look. Tempe, Arizona's Tri-City Jewish Community Center Web site lists some major sources: A holiday, season or month; place names of special meaning, especially places in Israel; a name that appears in the parashah, the weekly Torah portion, around the time of the child's birth; Jewish or Israeli celebrities and Jewish or Israeli historical figures. Other naming ideas are listed at www.tricityjcc.org/ resources/babynames

There are several excellent sites where you can look up names. The Tri-City site mentioned above lets you search through more than 1,000 Hebrew names by keyword or meaning. And if you've always wondered what your Jewish name means, just type it in for an explanation. While not a Jewish Web site, www.babynamer.com does index more than 500 Hebrew names. You can even specify the first letter of the name and how many syllables you are looking for. With each name, you are given a definition.

If you're still stuck for a name, check out BabyCenter and its Jewish name discussion area at www.babycenter.com/ bbs/5721 Check out www.thebabiesplanet.com/ bbnames.shtml for even more links to baby-naming resources.

Sometimes being able to match Jewish and secular given names can make all the difference in filling in the blanks in your family tree. That was the challenge that confronted Warren Blatt when he tried to match his grandfather's first cousin's Jewish name, Mordechai Yehudah ben Reb Tzvi, with the official Russian documentation belonging to Lejbka Gerszkiewicz Dembor. Blatt did it and explains how you can too at the JewishGen Web site, www.jewishgen.org/ infofiles/GivenNames

When selecting a name, parents are always walking a tightrope between choosing a unique moniker and one that's become too popular. It seemed like when I was in second grade every other boy was named Mark/Moshe. The Social Security Administration keeps tracks of baby naming trends so that you can check the popularity of the top thousand names going back to 1900. Last year, there were 233 Chanas born in the Unites States which put the name in 942nd place. The 152 Yehudas born helped that name squeak into the list at 1,000th place! See www.ssa.gov/ OACT/babynames to find out how other names rank in the list.

Finally, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson offers some controversial advice writing for the Jewish Family and Life Web site. Many people spend a great deal of effort trying to find a non-Jewish equivalent to a Jewish name. Artson urges parents to consider giving their children only Hebrew names, particularly when naming a baby after an honored relative. "There are no English equivalents [to Hebrew names]. A name is a name, and a translation is no longer the same. It is a matter of Jewish comfort and pride that we no longer have to mask our Jewish identities with a gentile name...So please do seriously consider giving that gift of self-esteem and pride by having your child's Jewish name be the only name." Read more about this provocative viewpoint at www.shlk.com/80

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