The Trends of Jewish Naming

"She appeared opposite Charlton Heston as Moses's wife Sephora in The Ten Commandments. "

I got that line off the news, from a death notice of an actress I'm too young to remember. But I care because Sephora in place of Tziporah is the most exotic Anglicization of any Hebrew name I've ever heard.

Growing up, many of my friends were given both English and Hebrew names. Some of them, particularly the yeker kids, went by the English names. It was never much of an issue. By high school things changed; the teachers not only insisted on referring to us by our Hebrew names, but they further yiddishized them. Batya became Basya, Daniella became Devorah, and with the boys, Alex became Sander, and poor Johnathan became Yoynusun (plus nicknames, usually English ones like Joey for Yosef or Barbie for Bracha, were dropped). Then everyone went to Israel for a year and came back with yet another version of their names. It’s an interesting transformation to follow.

My totally black-hat friend recently had twins. They're called Chanie and Yaakov, but their names appear on the birth certificate as Annabelle and Jared. Huh? I think it's so unnecessary. In a time when a guy named Barak Obama may very likely become the next president of the United States, it's a little excessive and paranoid to cover up Jewishness by Anglicizing the name. It's also a little bit schizoid to go by two totally different names, one with family and friends and a totally different one with business associates. That can't be too healthy.

Another interesting trend I see among my friends who are MO is, instead of giving their kids English names like the ones they were given (such as Josh or Jennifer, etc), they name their children with distinctly Israeli but non-biblical names (such as Matan and Alon, or Ashra and Dorit). I wonder what that says?

And then there is the phenonemon of the million Chaya-Mushka- Menachem-Mendels. Since the Rebbetzin's passing it's been an unwritten rule that unless there was a pressing family name, every first girl born into a lubavitch family is named Chaya Mushka. As you can imagine, any given class in a Chabad girl's school is at least 30% Chaya Mushkas. (It's almost the same with boys.) But recently young parents have been breaking the trend and naming their daughters other names. It's actually seen as quite scandalous, as if the parents are too cool to do the proper, respectful thing. But who's to judge why people name their children what they do?

All my life I heard that parents receive ruach hakodesh before they name their child, and that the name is divinely intended. But I also remember how my child was named. My husband and I planned throughout the pregnancy to go with 2 names we both loved for a girl or the family name for a boy. We had a girl, but she was born early in the morning, so my husband was rushed to make shacharis and name her at the Torah. A few moments after the birth, while I was being wheeled out of the birthing room, completely delirious and semi-conscious from the ordeal and the drugs and not having slept for 48 hours, my husband turns to me on the way out and says, "I was thinking, we should really name her such-and-such." In my stupor I faintly remember thinking that it wasn't we planned, but honestly, at that moment, I could care less! I shook my head yes and blacked out. When I woke up, the deal was done and my daughter had been named. It took a full year of nicknames and playful conjugations before I took to her name. Now of course I can not imagine her with any other name and I absolutely love it, but I'd have to thank my husband's ruach hakodesh for it because I'm sure I had no part in it. I realize now that's a good thing, because if it were up to me, I'd go with something exotic like Sephora...