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Where do Yiddish names come from?
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amother
Cerulean


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 1:27 am
amother Cerise wrote:
Baila is aramaic like Sima.

Can u share source for Baila? Always wanted to know origins of the name
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  imaima  




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 2:00 am
amother Starflower wrote:
My grandfather’s family were Israeli. Of all the people whose names I know, only one had a Yiddish name, and it was a second name that wasn’t used. I don’t know of any other Yiddish names in that family, although there could be more. Everyone else only had Hebrew names.

What origin Israeli?
Never left Eretz Israel since the destruction of the Second Temple?
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  imaima  




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 2:01 am
amother Maroon wrote:
This is an interesting point, I'm curious as to a source. In general, records are very hard to find going back prior to the mid to early 1800s, depending on location. How would we know what names were or weren't common prior to that?

Looking st names at Gemara, people did as they pleased. So many names are from unknown sources
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amother
  Starflower  


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 8:08 am
imaima wrote:
What origin Israeli?
Never left Eretz Israel since the destruction of the Second Temple?

No, but we don’t know where they were from before Israel.
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amother
  Sapphire  


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 8:19 am
amother Starflower wrote:
No, but we don’t know where they were from before Israel.

Not knowing is soooo different than not being from somewhere before that
So what's your point?
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amother
  Cerise  


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 10:04 am
amother Cerulean wrote:
Can u share source for Baila? Always wanted to know origins of the name


According to Beis Shmuel, it is from Bilhah:

בילא. נגזר משם בלהה וכתב בס"ס לכתחילה יש לכתוב באל"ף ואם כתב בה"א כשר

It says here it is lechatchila spelled with an alef but if it is spelled with a hei it is kosher. I guess that answers Ruchel's confusion.
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amother
  Cerise  


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 10:07 am
amother Linen wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, the name Batya/Bitya/Basya is not in the Chumash. Its not a "Biblical name."
The person herself- "Bas Pharaoh" - is in the chumash, but she is called Bas Pharaoh.
The medresh tell us her name.

And as an aside, I went to Bais Yaakov Monsey. The Rebbetzin a"h was known to be a major gramarian. (Iykyk). She taught that the proper pronunciation is Bitya (mapik in the Taf). This is not a matter of accent or havarah. It's a matter of dikduk.

Eta. After googling this, I am coming back to correct this. While it is true that the Bas Pharaoh is not named in the Chumash, there is a "Bisya" mentioned in Divrei Hayamim. She is the mother of several people. The medresh identifies this woman ("Bisya") as the very same daughter of Pharaoh from Shemos, who saved Moshe from the river, and says that all of those names that are her sons in DH refer to Moshe.

Also, in DH, the name is spelled Bisya without a mapik in the saf, with a chirik under the bais.
I assume the popular pronunciation of Basya/Batya comes from the idea that Bisya is a contraction of the words "Bas Ka" daughter of Hashem.


בתיה. והוא שם הקודש ע"כ כותבין בת שבע דמתקריא בתיה
that's where the bas comes from.
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amother
  Starflower  


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 10:44 am
amother Sapphire wrote:
Not knowing is soooo different than not being from somewhere before that
So what's your point?

My point was exactly what I said. In all the generations that we know from my grandfathers family, there was only one person who had a Yiddish name. I was responding to the person who asked someone else where her family is from that they have no Yiddish names.
What’s your point?
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  Ruchel  




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 11:23 am
amother Starflower wrote:
My point was exactly what I said. In all the generations that we know from my grandfathers family, there was only one person who had a Yiddish name. I was responding to the person who asked someone else where her family is from that they have no Yiddish names.
What’s your point?


How many generations?
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amother
  Starflower  


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 11:25 am
Ruchel wrote:
How many generations?

He was 7th generation, we know names going back 5. I really wish we knew where they came from before that. My sister believes they were European, but I’m not convinced they weren’t of sefardic descent.
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amother
  Maroon


 

Post Sun, Dec 15 2024, 11:14 pm
imaima wrote:
Looking st names at Gemara, people did as they pleased. So many names are from unknown sources


Agree, but I'm curious as to a source that this is what they did from Gemara days up until around the year 1800.
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  imaima  




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 12:32 am
amother Starflower wrote:
He was 7th generation, we know names going back 5. I really wish we knew where they came from before that. My sister believes they were European, but I’m not convinced they weren’t of sefardic descent.


Why would they have a Yiddish name with a sephardic origin?
What mesora do they keep now? You know there is no „Israeli“ mesora. Is your grandfather‘s family sephardic or ashkenazi?


Last edited by imaima on Mon, Dec 16 2024, 12:44 am; edited 1 time in total
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  imaima  




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 12:44 am
amother Starflower wrote:
My point was exactly what I said. In all the generations that we know from my grandfathers family, there was only one person who had a Yiddish name. I was responding to the person who asked someone else where her family is from that they have no Yiddish names.
What’s your point?


First of all, you started out by saying that your mom’s name is Shayna, so here is a Yiddish name.
I was originally responding to the poster who made a ridiculous claim that a) yiddish names stopped being considered Jewish because yiddish stopped being spoken; and b) that there was a break in Yiddish being spoken.
As far as I know there was never such a break, e.g. there were always Yiddish speaking communities outside of Europe (e.g. the USA) so the tradition of speaking Yiddish and giving Yiddish names never stopped there. Even if some European communities seized to exist in the Holocaust, the Yiddish speaking survivors spoke Yiddish all through the war and camps and continued afterwards. AFAIK it’s the communities in Greece/on certain Greek islands that were completely destroyed and we don’t have any of their traditions or survivors left. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.

That’s the point. I was responding to the other poster who never came back, and her point was that there were some „authentic“ Jewish communities who only used Tanach, Hebrew names and were never influenced by the language of the surrounding cultures.
I am yet to see any such community or derech. Historically it doesn’t make sense to me. Yiddish names have centuries of tradition which should be good enough for many.
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  imaima




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 12:45 am
amother Maroon wrote:
Agree, but I'm curious as to a source that this is what they did from Gemara days up until around the year 1800.


What would these names otherwise come from?
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amother
Tuberose


 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 12:57 am
Don't have time to read through the whole thread so I'm not sure if this was mentioned-what is the origin and meaning of the name Yenta?
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amother
Magenta


 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 1:24 am
amother Aqua wrote:
There are Yiddish names that make come backs. No ones naming Draizel, Shprintza, Dobra, Hentsha


I heard a hysterical true story.
There is a family that named their daughter tziporah after the bubby faiga.
Another bubby/relative named Henya's response was "Achar meiah ve'esrim, what will you name your daughter after me, Tarnegoles????"
LOL
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  Ruchel  




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 5:41 am
imaima wrote:
Why would they have a Yiddish name with a sephardic origin?


Migration

Cue Beider

Yiddish names coming from ladino

Kresia (Gracia)
Bine/Buna (Buena) (think of Bine Gittel)
Shprintsa (Speranza)
Clara/Klore/Klure
Perla/Perl/Perli
Breina (Bruna, though there is also a Germanic root braun so?)
Vita/Vittush
Bayla (Bella)
Toltsa Dolsa
Gente YENTL
Jacinta YACHET
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amother
  Starflower  


 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 9:37 am
imaima wrote:
First of all, you started out by saying that your mom’s name is Shayna, so here is a Yiddish name.
I was originally responding to the poster who made a ridiculous claim that a) yiddish names stopped being considered Jewish because yiddish stopped being spoken; and b) that there was a break in Yiddish being spoken.
As far as I know there was never such a break, e.g. there were always Yiddish speaking communities outside of Europe (e.g. the USA) so the tradition of speaking Yiddish and giving Yiddish names never stopped there. Even if some European communities seized to exist in the Holocaust, the Yiddish speaking survivors spoke Yiddish all through the war and camps and continued afterwards. AFAIK it’s the communities in Greece/on certain Greek islands that were completely destroyed and we don’t have any of their traditions or survivors left. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.

That’s the point. I was responding to the other poster who never came back, and her point was that there were some „authentic“ Jewish communities who only used Tanach, Hebrew names and were never influenced by the language of the surrounding cultures.
I am yet to see any such community or derech. Historically it doesn’t make sense to me. Yiddish names have centuries of tradition which should be good enough for many.

The only correction is that it is two different sides of the family. My mother’s family is Russian and Hungarian. My father’s family is the Israeli one. We don’t know where they were from. They have some yerushalmi minhagim, some ashkenazi minhagim, and a few that we don’t know where they come from.
I don’t know who I responded to (perhaps it was you) someone who asked where someone was from that there were no Yiddish names in the family. (I think that’s what it was) My response to that was that my grandfather’s family was many generations from Israel, and only one Yiddish name that we know of. I can’t tell you why they used that one name, or why they didn’t use any other, but the fact is that in the 5 generations that we know, there is only one Yiddish name. For reference, my grandfather was born in the late 1920’s
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amother
  Cerise  


 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 12:52 pm
amother Starflower wrote:
The only correction is that it is two different sides of the family. My mother’s family is Russian and Hungarian. My father’s family is the Israeli one. We don’t know where they were from. They have some yerushalmi minhagim, some ashkenazi minhagim, and a few that we don’t know where they come from.
I don’t know who I responded to (perhaps it was you) someone who asked where someone was from that there were no Yiddish names in the family. (I think that’s what it was) My response to that was that my grandfather’s family was many generations from Israel, and only one Yiddish name that we know of. I can’t tell you why they used that one name, or why they didn’t use any other, but the fact is that in the 5 generations that we know, there is only one Yiddish name. For reference, my grandfather was born in the late 1920’s


As an FYI, men don't have Yiddish names. So Hershel is Tzvi. Yosef Leib is Yosef Aryeh. And so now. There are some names like Tzvi Hirsh (Not Hersh) and Meshulem Zisha or Gershen Mendel that have a yiddish name attached, but the more common names for men are Lashon Kodesh and they are called a Yiddish nickname. So there is nothing unusual about having no Yiddish men names for generations. It's also not so unheard of to have 5 generations of women with 4 Lashon kodesh names and 1 yiddish. I don't think it proves anything anyway.
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amother
  Starflower


 

Post Mon, Dec 16 2024, 1:02 pm
amother Cerise wrote:
As an FYI, men don't have Yiddish names. So Hershel is Tzvi. Yosef Leib is Yosef Aryeh. And so now. There are some names like Tzvi Hirsh (Not Hersh) and Meshulem Zisha or Gershen Mendel that have a yiddish name attached, but the more common names for men are Lashon Kodesh and they are called a Yiddish nickname. So there is nothing unusual about having no Yiddish men names for generations. It's also not so unheard of to have 5 generations of women with 4 Lashon kodesh names and 1 yiddish. I don't think it proves anything anyway.

I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I was just stating a fact, based on my family. And I didn’t say that we only know the male names in the family, or whether the one Yiddish name was male or female. Not sure why you’re assuming it’s all men.
Men DO have Yiddish names. Kalman. Shraga Feivel. Isaac (not sure how it’s spelled) Leibel. Berish. Not everyone male who is called by a Yiddish name has a Hebrew name. I know a few men who go by Dovi, but their given name is actually Ber or Berish.
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