Monday 21 November 2016

Am I allowed to give my kid a non-Hebrew (non-Jewish?) name?


I'd seen some poster that said it's horribly wrong to ever give your kid a non-Jewish/non-Hebrew name. Is that the norm?




Answer



For plenty of good Jews, their English name is the English cognate of their Hebrew name (Solomon/Shlomo, Avraham/Abraham, etc.). The letterhead of ultra-right-wing Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar read "Joel Teitelbaum." If someone is Solomon/Shlomo, no matter which they go by, that just goes into a Halachic document as "Shlomo"; Solomon doesn't even need to be mentioned.


Plenty of good Jews go their entire lives by a Hebrew name, but have an English (non-Biblical) name on their legal documents, for convenience. There's a very famous American rabbi "Moshe" today who's legally "Max."


Rabbi Moshe Feinstein says it's preferable, but not absolutely required, to give some sort of Jewish name. When people named their kids "Alexander" out of respect to Alexander the Great (just Alexander, no Hebrew name or anything), they overrode a preference, but not a law.


He also says that the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt needed to keep their Hebrew names, as before Judaic Law was handed down at Sinai, all they had was Hebraic culture. Once the law came around, we have that instead.


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