Where do Yiddish names come from?

amother

OP ↓

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 4:23 pm

Where do Yiddish names come from? Did they just translate a name to yiddish back in the day and a name was created? Our family has a few Yiddish names that have been passed down many generations. Some of them are obviously translated, others are just a random Yiddish word. I'm curious if anybody knows.

Wolfsbane

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 4:42 pm

amother OP wrote:

Do you mean translated from Hebrew? I think most Yiddish women's names are not Hebrew or Biblical in origin. I have heard that the Yiddish name Shprintze is derived from the Spanish Esperanza.

amother

Jean ↓

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 5:02 pm

UROOT wrote:

I always wonder this! Like are yiddish names sourced in torah/judiasm? Or are they the equivelant of naming your child "Rose" or "Serenity" just in the language that was used at the time?

Pretty much. Though people who still use Yiddish games prefer not to look at it that way.

amother

↑ OP

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 6:17 pm

amother Jean wrote:

Pretty much. Though people who still use Yiddish games prefer not to look at it that way.

We have some Yiddish names, we name for the grandmother. But I always wonder who came up with this name all those years back? We have lots of Gittys in the family. I also have a bubby Baila.

amother

Cerise

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 6:18 pm

There is sefer that says where certain names originated from. I for one always thought the name Bashy came from Russian but it comes from Bas Sheva and Basya apparently does too.

I tried to google it and found this link. You'll be surprised to see the mekoros for some names.

https://www.sefaria.org/Beit_S.....ng=bi

Ema of 5

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 6:24 pm

amother Cerise wrote:

Batya is a biblical name….where it comes from is clear, at least in the Chumash.

Last edited by Ema of 5 on Tue, Dec 10 2024, 8:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

zaq

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 8:03 pm

Some and some. Charna is Russian for black, Beila is ditto for white. Kreinda or Kreindl means a crown. Bluma is a flower, but Blima with a yud, not a vav, is poetic for "nothingness" as in "תולה ארץ על בלימה". (That is clearly not the meaning of the name Blima, for who would name a person "nothingness"? No, it's just the Chassidish/Hungarian/Galitzianer pronunciation of Bluma.)

OTOH Basha and Pesha are corruptions of Batya, Hencha and Chinka are corruptions of Chana...Todres is Theodorus, a Greek name with the same meaning as Matanya. (Gift of G-d) So why use Todres? Good question! And why is Shprintze, a corruption of Esperanza,meaning hope, acceptable while Tikva is not?

Don't get me started.

There is an Encyclopedia of Ashkenazic Names that can tell you the source of most names including many you never heard of because they died out centuries ago.

amother

Navy

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 8:19 pm

I dont think people who use these yiddish names are looking at origins. They're just making after the grandparent who they wish to honor. It might be true that they're not always from holy sources but if this was the grandmother's name, that's what they give. Many also don't think so much about "liking" the names they give. They just name for the closest relative.

amother

Snapdragon

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 8:35 pm

amother Navy wrote:

I give yiddish names because I like the name/meaning.

amother

Sapphire ↓

Tue, Dec 10 2024, 9:09 pm

Some are translations Zev volf, arye leib, shoshana raizel etc

Some aren't a direct translation but are related by meaning like the common Yehuda leib. Similarly efrayim fishel (because efrayim was blessed to be like fish)

Some are "nicknames" that then became names on their own throughout time etc
For example - Chana was nicknames henna, henya, chinka
Some of these nicknames developed off of each other as well

Some are just Yiddish words with meanings-that didn't originate in a Hebrew/biblical name
Like kreindel a crown, liba beloved, gittel good, zissel sweet

With the passage of time, some of the names that originated from Hebrew names/are linked to Hebrew names somehow were sometimes named as names of their own, plus people made new combinations so the became more "stand alone" than they were before

amother

Stoneblue ↓

Yesterday at 6:45 am

zaq wrote:

Thank you, Zaq. So refreshing to find someone (else) who knows this - and has a similar attitude towards some (non) names.

Furthermore - although not popular to publicize - there many Yidden who were nebach illiterate. They didn't know how to spell many names, hence רחל becoming רעכל or ראכל. Or - they spelled names following Yiddish spelling norms rather than Loshon Hakodesh (like the name Rachel). Other times, they didn't know an ancestor's *actual* name. ("My grandfather? His name was Zanvil/Fishel/Shmelka.")

This is a pet peeve of mine as well.

amother

↑ Stoneblue ↓

Yesterday at 6:48 am

amother Sapphire wrote:

Some aren't a direct translation but are related by meaning like the common Yehuda leib. Similarly efrayim fishel (because efrayim was blessed to be like fish)

Although Yerucham Fishel is a name pair, too.

amother

↑ Stoneblue

Yesterday at 6:52 am

Ruchel wrote:

Shprintza is from ladino
Is ladino also OK to bash or is it again something about Ashkenazim?

The highest gedolim use or used yiddish, ladino, judéo Italian, judeo Arabic names for their children.

As mentioned by Zaq, the name is from Esperanza=Tikva.

Judeo-Arabic names are probably similar to Yiddish in their formation. They're based on Spanish/Arabic/etc. - not Hebrew.

I do know Sephardim who struggle to name after relatives who have names like Farha and Massouda (both can be translated to Mazal, but "that's not the mother's/grandmother's name").

amother

Freesia

Yesterday at 7:11 am

Most of my older relatives were known by multiple names:
Joseph-Yale-Yoel
Max-Mendel
Lena-Leyka-Leah
Rose-Raizel
Marty-Maishe-Moshe
Betty-Bunya
In doing family research, I discovered that there were many names in the shtetl as well. People had Russian or Polish names as well as Yiddish or Hebrew names. Many were also used as nicknames.