Most Uncommon Frum Names

You don’t see a lot of frum guys named Abdullah these days.

First or last? Any name that originates in England or South Africa, will probably be eligible. Examples Selwyn, Hylton, etc. The MOST unusual name of an unquestionably Orthodox Jewish man who is FFB whom I know, is Noel. I also know of a frum woman whose name is Nicole. As these are both references to either the holiday or the jolly fat December guy with the reindeer, I cannot fathom what possessed the parents to give those names to Jewish children. But it is more common than one would imagine.

When we were little kids, my sibs and I would play the name game. We would take a nice Jewish name like Moshe Eliezer, and find a really outrageous secular name for it, like Montgomery Ellsworth.

We would take a nice Jewish name like Moshe Eliezer, and find a really outrageous secular name for it, like Montgomery Ellsworth.

BS”D

I know of a BT whose secular registered name is unfortunately Leroy.

Actually, the Satmar community registers very old fashioned names for male children whose names do not have a clear English translation (Yoel is registered as Joel, Avrohom as Abraham, but Eliyahu could be Eugene or Alfred. The generation before has names like Leopold, Harold etc). This was, for some reason, the way Reb Yoilish ZYA wanted it and it reflected Hungarian custom to use a secular name for government matters.

Amitai

Yechiel

Yom Yov

Chovov

I think Yechiel is not such an uncommon name.

Genendel

Shprintza

Tzirel (I knew a Tzirel who was convinced her parents made up the name, so she used her middle name. Eventually she discovered her parents didn’t make it up. But by that time everyone knew her by her middle name.)

Osnat is fairly common here in EY.

One of the most unusual names I ran into was a non-frum man whom I spoke to on the phone while I was at work. His parents gave him and his brother Jewish names, but of course, they didn’t use them. Probably a good thing. His name was Rochel and his brother’s was Gitel.

Well the name Nicole Its veryy common in my community (yes orthodox!)

BS”D

Morocco? Tunisia? Algeria? Egypt? When French culture was introduced to the Jewish communities of North Africa and Egypt, French names for girls became very common and they were the only or main name the girls were known by. In some cases they replaced Judeo-Arabic names such as Massouda (Arabic for Mazal, became Fortunee or ended up spelled Messody).

With the big wave of tshuva BH in Paris, Montreal, and EY, many Nicoles and Annettes and Karines and Nathalies are now true bnot Torah, but they didn’t change their names because they were named for relatives. I know of a very frum from birth Rabbanit in a major Moroccan community whose name is Annette and when I asked her son for his mother’s name as I was going to visit a mokom koidesh, that was the only name he had for her.

BTW Nicole is from Greek, from the word for victory which is familiar to all of us as Nike and was the name of a getschke (not a problem to wear Nike shoes as that getschke is no longer worshipped). It is the female form of Nicolas (Nicholas).

In Chabad communities Shneur is not that uncommon.

600kilo: sephardic brooklyn community. And yeah mazal is fortune, just like bahiya is batya and shafika is shifra….

“Really? Well the name Nicole Its veryy common in my community (yes orthodox!) Maybe you should be careful how you say things. Because is NOT uncommon “

Don’t get bent out of shape. I AM careful how I say things, and meant no insult. Nicole comes from Nicholas which is the REAL name of the “sainted” jolly man in the red suit. Any Jew who knows that would not b’davka seek to name a child nicole or nicholas (would a frum parent name a son christopher or a daughter christine?) It just shows that the people who do so, really are not thinking about the name at all, or its origins. Perhaps your Orthodox community is unaware of the significance of that name. Otherwise why would anyone frum would want to call their child by a name, no matter how pretty, that is SO strongly sociated with both christianity and paganism?

If it is out of a genuine and innocent lack of awareness, then it is GOOD for it to be called to their attention. I truly did not intend to offend. My apologies.

How about Elmo, as a contraction of Eli(ezer/ahu etc.) Mo(she/rdechai etc.)

;

Kilo: I guess the was the the french names became kodesh (if I understand correctley u mean like the name sophia right) but that was our parents and grandparents generations, now the behiyas have became batya…in the old country they were called bahiya.

Oomis: all the nicoles I know are named only after grandmothers.

BS”D

I know of an Algerian Jew named C—istian. In this case the name, not very innocently suggested by Catholic mission hospital nurses who duped his parents, had a very bad effect on his neshomo. He owns or owned a treyf lemehadrin seafood restaurant in Yafo :(.

Yiddish has names that crept in from the surroundings. Masha and Maryasha, probably innocently given to name a girl in memory of a Moshe or Menachem, both come from Maria. Knowing the origin I could never under normal circumstances give those names. However, many of my friends have relatives with those names who lived here in the bad old days under conditions of amazing mesirus nefesh (in particular there are 600 descendants of a renowned “Rebbetzin Maryasha” who were born and are frum today because she kept to the Torah all 106 years of her life despite losing her husband at an early age to the KGB), and it would be a dishonor not to name for these neshei chayil because of their origins.

Since the French names are not as old it is easier to go back one or two generations and find the name that should have been used, but still I understand wanting to name for a relative just as the name was. Nevertheless, when I was in Montreal, it was a common occurrence for a girl with a French name to change it and give out cake on Shabbos to celebrate the change.

BS”D

The story is told of an extreme meshichist, a real nut who I know to be off center, who named his kid Boruch Haba Melech Hamoshiach. The poor kid is known by an acronym made up of his initials – beis hay mem hay – behema!!!!

I don’t know if this is true but I’ve heard it tens of times.

Rav Adin Steinsaltz (Even-Yisroel)’s eldest son’s nickname is A-Mechaye, made up of parts of his first names. This is true; all mazal tovs posted for him refer to that name. I forget what the names are, probably Avraham Moshe Chaim.

BS”D

But the worst apocryphal story I heard comes from someone who taught afternoon Hebrew school and supposedly had a girl in her class named Zona. When asked if that was the real name, she said, well, everyone called my grandmother that. I seriously hope this one is made up.

While we are at it, the name Freha, turned into vulgar slang by the medine which wrecked so many Moroccan families, but still used in France, is Arabic for Simha and is therefore the Moroccan version of Fraidel.

The old and secularized among us will recall an old Bill Cosby routine in which he reminisces that as a boy, he thought his name was [something we do not say], because as a child, whenever he crossed the line, his father would thunder, “[Blank-Blank], you come here right now!”

P4M, it was actually for that reason that my husband and I only gave Jewish names to our children. Their English names ARE their Jewish names (i.e. Moshe, Rivkah, etc.) .

I only heard of 1 guy with the name Sinai & 1 girl with the name Genendy

Maria is Greek for Miriam, and all the derivatives of Maria/Mary/Marie/Masha are simply forms of Miriam. Miriam, like Moshe, is a name of Egyptian origin, but it obviously has been popular for thousands of years among Jews. It was so popular 2000 years ago that almost all the women in the Christian canon (written mostly in Greek with a little Aramaic) are named Miriam, which appears as Maria, so many in fact that the Christians keep getting them confused with each other. Mordechai is derived from Marduk, the name of a pagan deity. Obviously no one still worships Marduk, and most people have never heard of him. Esther itself is a Persian (Indo-European)name with a ‘star’ meaning. Her shem kodesh was Hadassah with a plant meaning.

Jews have been using a shem kodesh with a shem kinnui at least since Hellenistic times. That has led to some strange names from our perspective. For example, it was not unusual for medieval Jewish merchants in Muslim countries to use the name Mohammed as a shem kinnui when conducting business. Today of course no Jew would use that name. One can’t even name a children’s teddy bear Mohammed without causing an hysterical reaction. In medieval France men named Baruch used the name Benedict (like Ratzinger), since the two names mean the same thing. Our word ‘bentch’ as in ‘bentch licht’ comes from the same root as benediction.

It is only recently that frum Jews in North America have isolated themselves sufficiently from the rest of society to find giving only Hebrew, Aramaic, or Yiddish names to their children is workable. Frum children in frum neighborhoods never come across anyone who would find, say, Yerachmiel or Pinchas odd or difficult to pronounce. My grandparents certainly gave themselves English names as soon as they arrived over here. Shlomo Chaim became Solomon, Tzvya-Chaya became Celia Ida, Tzippa became Cecelia, Meir became Meyer, although no one in the family ever used the English names. They were strictly for government and work purposes. My own name is Miriam, just Miriam, no English middle name, no Jewish double name, Miriam for any and all purposes. But my parents, my sister, my aunts and uncles all have English names and Jewish names (Hebrew or Yiddish).

BS”D

It is also only recently when you had such a paper and computer trail that the dual name became a problem for those of us who want to use only our real names. I am in a foreign country where I can call myself what I want except at the bank and airport (and I bank electronically anyway) so that is what I do. My leases are all in my real name; no one cared to look at my passport to find my civil name.

To go back and change my US papers is a headache and I was advised not to bother but rather to do what I indeed do and use AKA in very formal situations or to file a sole proprietorship certificate (civil name dba Hebrew name) so as to be able to accept cheques under my real name (no issue – anyone who pays me in the US does so online to a corporate account).

RE: the name Moshe being Egyptian – while that is true to some extent, the fact is that he was named thus by Bat Par’o, because (and I quote) “min hamayim misheeseehu,” which clearly is said in Hebrew. “Moshe” itself is the present tense active form of the word. In Egyptian, his name might not have been sounding exactly like Moshe, but if it did, she still named him through the Hebrew language.

I call my husband Jose all the time! His name is Joseph.

The most uncommon hebrew name I’ve heard was Boaz. At least I thought so until I met a second one. Both are under 2.

If you are talking about general names, my sons are Logan and Cody which is pretty rare.

I’m doing great! The baby is growing well bh. I am back to work as of yesterday! Did I miss a lot?