Reply To: When & why did we start giving children more than one name?

nitpicker – “These are not exceptions at all.

these names are compounds with more than one part. not two names.”

The Noda B’yehuda provides these examples, look it up.

You should suggest your p’shat to him. The N.B. suggests other explanations (such as Beribi or Abba being a title etc.) but he did not chap your chiddush (a chiddush that even Moshe did not get from Sinai) that these are simply compounded names.

As I wrote, it is true that many gedolim themselves had more than one name (which was imposed on them by their parents) and they themselves gave more than one name to their children, yet they discourage it as a general rule. Example I mentioned earlier: Chazon Ish etc.

As such, it is VERY appropriate if this chumrah can be instituted – that as a general rule we should only give one name, subject to exceptions of sholom bayis / avoiding machlokes, tzorech godol, hefsed merubah, sha’as hadchak etc. But that should be the EXCEPTION, not the rule.