TRR 109-113

NAMES WHICH ARE AVOIDED

QUESTION:

A mother gave birth to a little girl who died soon after. The next year she gave birth to another girl who lived. She wanted to give her living girl the name which had been bestowed upon the baby sister who had died. But she was told that it is not proper (or wise) to use that same name for the second child. Was this caution justified by Jewish tradition? (Asked by Teresa Schwartz.Monroeville, Pennsylvania.)

ANSWER:

It is almost a universal human conviction that the name given to a person is of vital significance of the person’s destiny. Why this should be so can perhaps be explained on psychological grounds, namely, that a person tends to live up to the associations of his name; or on social grounds, that certain names are widely respected and others less respected, so the bearer of a name is treated accordingly. At all events, whatever psychology or sociology is behind the belief, it is a widely rooted popular conviction that the name given to a person helps determine his future. The Romans embodied this belief in the phrase, “One’s name is his destiny” (“nomen est omen”). And the Talmud expresses the same belief (Berakhot 7b) in the expression, “the name is influential. “It gives a proof example of the career of Ruth, saying that her name determined her destiny, namely, that she would be ancestress to David, who would please God with his songs and hymns (the same verbal root is then pointed out in the word “Ruth” and in the word” to please God.” Thus her name determined what would happen a few generations in the future.

Since the belief that the name is destiny is so widespread, one can understand why in the Jewish tradition (as in other traditions) it was taken for granted that Rabbi Meir would judge the character of the people he had to deal with by their names (Yomah 83b). And so it is also understandable that many folk beliefs, fears and hopes clustered around the giving of names to children: Which names should be chosen and which would be avoided?

1. In Bible times there is an extraordinary avoidance of names, a fact which has not been fully explained. What is obvious and well- known is that every name in the Bible is original. There is not a single repeated name. When, for example, in royal dynasties all over the world certain names are frequently repeated (so many Edwards, so many Georges, so many Fredericks) in the whole Biblical list of kings from Saul all the way down to the last king, Zedekiah, not a single royal name is repeated! So among the high priests, descendants of Aaron, not a single name is repeated. Why should this be? One explanation given is that in Biblical times they knew their genealogy thoroughly and so did not need to use family names as identification and could make original names (Genesis Rabah 37:7). But in our time we need to indicate by the names what is our family descent. This serves as an explanation, but the startling fact remains that in the whole Biblical story there was a complete avoidance of using a name that had already been used.

2. After Biblical times, in the Greek period, perhaps influenced by Greek custom, family names began to be repeated and this, then, is the practice that has continued up to our day. But even in this regard, popular belief tended to express itself. There was an avoidance of naming the first boy child after the wife’s grandfather, and the second child would not be named after then father’s grandfather. This was based on the wording of Scripture in Genesis 38:1-4. There we are told that Judah married a Canaanitish woman and she bore him a son who was named Er; and then she bore another son whose name was Onan. Who named these sons? Scripture says of the first-born, “He (Judah) called his name Er,” and of the second son, “She called his name Onan.” Of course this assignment of name giving could be compromised and the child given a combined name uniting the husband’s and the wife’s ancestry.

3. This naming after the older generation awakened the fear in popular belief that the child would take the place of the older one and the older one would die. Hence, a new avoidance grew up, not to name a child after living ancestors. This popular avoidance is reported in the Sefer Hasidim #460. This book, a great repository of mysticism and folklore, was written by Judah the Pious who died in the year 1217. The statement in the Book of the Pious says rather imprecisely that “there are places in which they do not name for a living person.” The commentator Azulai says he met a man who gave his son the same name as his and he found it astonishing (i.e., blameworthy).

4. Then popular feeling associated certain names with good fortune or ill fortune. Again the Sefer Hasidim (#244) says that if children die who are named after even a righteous man, then that name should no longer be used to name a child.

5. Our question, then, is related to this last avoidance, the fear of an ill-fated name. Leopold Loeb in his Lebensalter (pp. 92-109) tells that the fear expressed in our question (giving a second baby girl the name that had been given to the baby girl who had died) was found among the Hungarian Jews. Upon inquiry I have found that Catholic custom is exactly the reverse (at least among Italian Catholics). They prefer to name a second child with the same name that had been given to the first one who had died in infancy. Perhaps because in Catholic Hungary Jews saw a similar custom among the Catholics, they wanted to avoid it, and also because of the caution cited from the Sefer Hasidim. However this particular folk avoidance is refuted by the great scholar Nathaniel Weil who was Rabbi in Prague in the 18th century. In his responsa, Torat Nataniel #20, he refers to this popular avoidance and says it has no justification. He bases his proof on the commentary of Rashi to I Chronicles 3:8. There, among David’s children, the name Eliphalat is mentioned twice and Rashi explains that a child whom David named Eliphalat had died in infancy and David gave the same name to the next son who was born to him. Thus Nathaniel Weil proves there is no basis to this particular popular name avoidance.