English names? | Imamother

greenfire ↓

Tue, Jul 03 2007, 9:17 am

name the kid what you want in which ever way you want and just forget the world ... so what if suddenly faige become paige or saige or you have to tell them 250,000 times during the course of your lifetime ... it is her name and that is all that matters ... once when we picked up a prescription and the pharmacist said "faygie" we looked at him strangely cause he got it right and we don't even call her the nickname version just faige as in yiddish ...

↑ amother

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 4:03 pm

For my first two it was easy Chana - Hannah, Yosef - Joseph, their middle names are yiddish, so we just spelt them as is on the documents (US). The 3rd one Faygie we ended up spelling Fay and we converted her yiddish middle name into English because alone Fay did not go with our last name. We, of course call kids by their Hebrew (Yiddish) names only, but they know English version exists for documents. Oh yeah, they also Russian version for their grandparents so they are Hanochka, Yosya, and Fanechka (all ch as in chair) LOL

Buttom line is do what works for you !

southernbubby

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 4:22 pm

My youngest son spent the first 5 months of his life without a name because he was unable to have his bris until then. I wanted to name him Jeffrey just until the bris so that the nurses would have something to call him. I asked a rav (whose has an English name due to the law in England when he was born) if I could just temporarily call the baby Jeffrey. The rav said "no" because he felt that our son would be called Jeffrey forever. When I reminded the rav of his English name, he said that that name has never been used except on documents.
We used Hebrew names spelled phonetically on the birth certificates. This is not required by halacha. Rabbi Nesanel Lauer said at a shiur recently that many yiddish names have their origins in French, Spanish and other languages.

chocolate moose ↓

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 4:27 pm

amother wrote:

SOme people feel Yiddish names are not acceptable and there is only a mitzvah to give a hebrew name.

If I remember correctly, the Rebbe said to give the first name Hebrew, the 2nd name Yiddish.

You know what I hate? When the parents choose a name that they can't pronounce....Chaya and the mother can't do a ches, or if she can't do an R and Rochel Leah becomes Bracha Leah . . I think that's awful!

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 4:32 pm

We choose to give hebrew name that ring a tone in English.
DH suffered growing up (in Chu"l) with a very unpronouncable hebrew name and I am constantly frustrated by my difficult secular name I go by (in Israel).

BennysMommy ↓

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 4:34 pm

this doesnt answer the op but just want to share a little story. in argentina until a little while ago, you were only allowed to name a child (officially) by an "approved" argentine name. so no jewish names on the official papers. when my father in law went to name my sister in law (shes 21 now) he asked the judge if there's a limit to how long the name can be. the judge said no. my father in law proceeded and gave some ridiculously long and ugly sounding spanish name. (think 7-10 names!) the judge looked at him and said "why would you want to do this to your daughter?" he answered because when ppl ask me why I named her this, ill answer "bc judge so and so didn't let me give her a name with 4 letters" the judge said "ok fine" and agreed to her being named jana. (spanish spelling of chana) she was the first chana ever named in argentina!

↑ chocolate moose ↓

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 4:35 pm

southernbubby wrote:

What if you had called him muffin or Tzaddikel? Who's to say that such a name would not have stuck?

nylon

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 5:29 pm

hila wrote:

I dont agree that kids need English names at all. We never gave tehm two names. And their TOTALLY Hebrew names are on the birth certificates (British and US) with no problem.
The workd is now global and if Achmed is a recognisable name in England then they can put up with Avichai and any other name I chose for my kids.

That's what I told my mother when she said "but they'll be teased at school!" (never mind that they'll go to a Jewish school...) Every other ethnic group uses their own names, why shouldn't we?

I DID pick a name that wasn't too hard to pronounce in English (no chet) out of consideration for my ILs. Although people do often pronounce it slightly wrong (they mix up Aliza and Eliza). Oh well!

Newsie

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 5:49 pm

My parents gave me a legal english name, but everyone always called me by my hebrew name. It was annoying to have a different name on my official documents. I didn't give my kids English names. I live in Israel, but I don't think I would have even if I loved in chutz laaretz

bashinda

Wed, Jul 04 2007, 6:00 pm

shalhevet wrote:

[
But you're in a different situation. Say you call your ds Mordechai and write Max on his American documents. So you and dh call him Mordechai, he goes to gan and cheder and he gets called Mordechai, he gets letters with the name Mordechai and writes Mordechai on his books.
One day grandma comes round and in the middle of something calls "Max!". Everyone looks round (including him).

shalhavet you're creeping me out. Is it common that Mordechai goes with the name Max? My alter zeide was Max and his Hebrew name was Mordechai. Now my son is an Aharon Mordechai but we don't call him Arthur Max. Smile

↑ Marion

Thu, Jul 05 2007, 1:59 am

bashinda wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

Yes...Max and Mordechai are commonly paired.

↑ shalhevet

Thu, Jul 05 2007, 2:08 am

bashinda wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

No, I don't know anyone with that pair!! I just gave Mordechai as an example of a name that has no English equivalent and is probably impossible for a non-Jew to identify or pronounce. Then I just thought of a simple M name in English.

LikeMeDoes

Thu, Jul 05 2007, 9:31 am

I must admit that my official name is my Jewish one, which, although it doesn't have a ches in it, isn't too easy to say. And I'm fine with that.
But I remember a similar discussion on here a while ago and after I read that, I was thinking about it a lot.
Not long after that I went to an official ceremony and and EVERYONE there: Turks, Muslims, Africans etc etc, all had ethnic names and the poor lady at the front had to try and read them. And then when I go shopping I see all the ethnic minorities with their ethnic names written proudly on their nameplates.
If THEY are proud of their names, and don't give a hoot about other people being able or unable to pronounce, kal vechomer us.
I didn't reread the whole thread but I'm sure someone mentioned the Rashi (I think) that one of the reasons that we were redeemed from Egypt is 'Lo Shinu Shemosam'.
Not to say that a BT should be gung ho about making sure that everyone only call them their Jewish name but lechatchila to give another, secular name .... I don't know Confused

TzenaRena

Thu, Jul 05 2007, 9:54 am

amother wrote:

SOme people feel Yiddish names are not acceptable and there is only a mitzvah to give a hebrew name.

A feeling is not a mitzvah!

Clearly, there were great Tzaddikim with Yiddish names, given to them by their parents who were also Tzadikkim so I don't know where this feeling comes from, but it's not a mitzvah!

Quote:

If I remember correctly, the Rebbe said to give the first name Hebrew, the 2nd name Yiddish.

in the event that there were two names, one yiddish, one Hebrew. Do you have a source for this statement? (I haven't heard of it).

Quote:

(I'm not raising them with the idea that you have to live in e'y because its holy etc and if you leave israel we'll be very disappointed with you. But this isn't a debate on living in eretz yisroel or not, and lets not turn it into that.)

I'm not sure this is "only" a hashkafic matter. There are halachos involved.

However, one way or the other I see it as strange to let how others - non-frum or non-Jewish look at you or can pronounce your name- determine such an important thing as a Jewish name that has to do with the essence of a Jew.

The old Jewish inferiority complex? Confused

suomynona

Thu, Jul 05 2007, 10:14 am

I agree with E&D. Nowadays in America, everyone uses their ethnic names and are proud of it, so there's really no reason to have an English name.
In one of the places I worked, there were a few frum men who were called by the English versions of their names and it bothered me because there were so many Indians and people of other nationalities with impossible-to-pronounce names. These frum people's Jewish names were much easier, so why did they feel they had to change it?

Boys"R"Us

Fri, Jul 06 2007, 1:31 am

[quote="bashinda"Is it common that Mordechai goes with the name Max? My alter zeide was Max and his Hebrew name was Mordechai. Now my son is an Aharon Mordechai but we don't call him Arthur Max. Smile

[/quote]

My Grandfather was also Mordechai and Max in English! One of my sons has Mordechai as his middle name and Max as his english second name.

What we did, was to give a Hebrew name as the first name that we use and a useable nice English name as a second name on the birth certificate. So for example, let's say we had a son named Akiva Yona, then on the birth certificate, I would put Akiva Jonah. That way, the name that we use is the name everyone uses, but if one day in the future, he ever wants to use an english name, he has a decent one available to him!
(Btw, that name was not really one of my sons, it was just an example. But now that I look at it - I really like it!! LOL

Almost makes me want to have another boy Very Happy