When I was pregnant with our first son, my (non-Jewish) husband wanted to name the baby after himself. His brother is a junior, and it’s a family tradition. I told him that Ashkenazic Jews don’t name after the living.
When I was pregnant with our daughter, my husband wanted to name her after his grandmother, Rose, who was, in fact, as he pointed out – feeling proud of himself for remembering the rules – dead. But I didn’t like the name. We were discussing this with my father, who suggested, “How about Rachel or Rebecca?”
My husband looked at me queerly and pointed out the obvious, “Those are totally different names.”
I explained to him that Jews considered using the same first letter as naming after a person. (I am Alina, after my grandfather Abraham.)
Are there actually Jewish baby-naming rules? And, if so, are they the same for Jews all over the world?
Let’s explore, shall we?
Ashkenazic naming practices
Ashkenazic Jews traditionally name children after relatives who have passed on as a way to keep the memory of that person alive and to inspire the namesake to live up to their predecessor’s better qualities.
Sephardic naming practices
Sephardic Jews (and Dutch Ashkenazim), on the other hand, seek to achieve the same objective by naming their babies after a living relative.
Torah naming practices
Both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews sometimes pick a name from the Torah portion that corresponds with the infant’s birth.
Assimilated naming practices
One of the reasons Jewish parents were historically urged to give their children culturally appropriate names was to stave off the threat of assimilation. Of course, considering that the top 10 American baby names for boys in 2017 included Noah (No. 2), Benjamin (6), Elijah (8) and Jacob (10), according to the U.S. Social Security database, the question becomes: who assimilated whom? (For girls, Abigail is the only obviously Jewish name to break the Top 10, squeezing in at number 10.)
Naming ceremony practices
Many observant Jews won’t announce a baby boy’s Hebrew name until his brit milah on the eighth day from his birth. This tradition is tied to the idea that a boy does not fully receive his soul until the bris, and thus cannot be properly named until that happens.
Meanwhile, a girl’s naming ceremony typically takes place at the first Torah reading after her birth.
READ: PICKING THE JEWISH NAME FOR YOUR BABY – PT. 2
Hebrew naming practices
A child’s formal Hebrew name – which may match his or her English name exactly (for instance, my oldest child is named Adam, which works across the board), partially (my daughter is Aries Camille, which combines to form the Hebrew Ariel) or not at all (my middle son’s English name is Gregory and his Hebrew name is Barak) – will be structured as the child’s name, followed by “ben” or “bar” for a boy (“bat” for a girl), and then the father’s Hebrew name.
Though most will choose a Hebrew or Yiddish name, it technically can be from any language or culture. (So Dylan is back on the table!) This is the name the child will be called at their bar/bat mitzvah and other formal religious occasions, as well as possibly in Hebrew school.
Naming practices for a child with a non-Jewish parent
A glitch does come up if the child receiving their formal Hebrew name has a non-Jewish father. In that case, depending on which Jewish sect the parents ascribe to, the father’s name is substituted for either the Jewish mother’s name, the maternal grandfather’s name or Avraham (for the Patriarch Abraham). Some officiants are choosing to add the Jewish mother’s name in addition to and preceding the non-Jewish father’s name in order to be inclusive and welcoming.
So, even in this case, what seems to be a rule becomes more of a flexible suggestion, which – in a world of the cliché “two Jews, three opinions” – is probably the safest path to take.