Talk:Hebrew name

Phoenician Origins of Hebrew Names

Kaleb and "El" derived names have Phoenician roots, how should this be applied?"GESICC (talk) 00:28, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Are you sure that they're Phoenician? What I mean is, for example, El was worshiped by both the Phoenicians and the Israelites, and the languages are very, very similar, to the point that there is evidence that both the Greeks and the Phoenicians and Israelites themselves considered them to be two forms of the same language. I am not aware of any ancient sources from the Levant (including the Bible) that refer to the language as anything but "Canaanite" (yes, I know, I'm taking some liberties with translation), and the Greeks seem to have called it all "Phoenician." In light of that, how can you be sure that names like Caleb or names containing "el" come from one culture and not the other? messor (talk) 16:22, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Shoshana and Other Foreign

Susan/Shoshana comes ultimately from ancient Egyptian, if I recall rightly - I'll have to look into that one... - Mustafaa 23:16, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's perfectly alright to list Hebrew names that were originally adapted from other languages, as long as they have undergone the hebraization process. That's why so many Aramaic names can also be considered Hebrew names. Additionally, even the Tanakh occasionally attributes names to loan from a foreign language, such as Egyptian or Aramaic. Another example of an Egyptian Hebrew name is Nephi. Also, it is possible that Asenath is an Egyptian name, given that she was from Egypt. :) (Note: Unlike controversial BoM names, "Nephi" is an Egypto-Hebrew name documented historically in the eastern hemisphere, and is also appears in the non-LDS books of the Apocrypha. The Arabic name "Nafiyah" is believed to be from the same source.) - Gilgamesh 01:01, 6 May 2004

Sure; but in such cases, their previous etymology is also of interest, and should be listed if possible. - Mustafaa 05:10, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, where does Nephi appear in the Apocrypha? I havem't read most of them. - Mustafaa 05:11, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't know, as I have never read the Apocrypha either. I just know that the name is there. Easily confirmed, I imagine. - Gilgamesh 05:57, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Here it is: 2 Maccabees 1:36 "And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi." But it doesn't seem to appear as a personal name. - Mustafaa 06:45, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

That's okay. Lots of Hebrew place names are later adopted as personal names, and this trend continues among modern Jews and Christians; consider Christian names like "Adam" and modern Israeli names like "Chayim", which were both merely nouns in the Tanakh. I'm rather flexible about this; if a name is of established Hebrew origin, and is used in a culture of national or international presence, then it can be considered a Hebrew personal name, equally as worthy of mention on the list. And as Hebrew names, they can be presented both in scientific transliteration and in Modern Hebrew transliteration. - User:Gilgamesh 07:15, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Um, I hate to say it, but if the Apocrypha only have it as the name of a thing, we really need some attestation of it as a personal name to list it on the List of Hebrew names. Can you give a reference? - Mustafaa 06:57, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I never thought it guaranteed that Nephi would be a personal name in the Apocrypha, so that doesn't necessarily surprise me. The fact is that it's a personal name in LDS tradition, because it appears as a personal name in the Book of Mormon. I merely cited the names mention in the Apocrypha as corrolation that the name is attested at least in some form in Middle Eastern record, and therefore not exclusively a BoM name. If different unique traditions use a name as a personal name and attribute it to a known Hebrew form, then I see it worthy of mention in the names list. I don't doubt that other religious and cultural groups also have their own personal names that are not used as personal names in their sister cultures. (Did that make sense? I hope this doesn't seem too autistic of me. :P) - User:Gilgamesh 07:15, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough; it's a personal name now, and it's derived from Hebrew, so that works! However, it may be worth commenting on this point in the article (or someone sooner or later will probably, being unaware of this discussion, remove it on the grounds that Hebrew speakers don't use it. - Mustafaa 07:19, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like it would be a good idea to add a disclaimer of the neutral and all-inclusive criteria used to include names in the list. I can see potential NPOV arguments for both excluding and for including the names, so I'd personally lean to including them so as to make sure no one is discriminated against. - Gilgamesh 07:27, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Oh - and what Arabic name Nafiya? The only one I can think of (or find with Google, offhand) is Nâfi`, which has a ayin at the end and thus doesn't fit very well with the suggested etymology of Nephi... - Mustafaa 05:18, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I just remember encountering Nafiyah in a discussion about Nephi in a linguistic journal somewhere when I was browsing the Internet once. I remember it being "Nafiyah" (either that or "Nafiya") as an Arabic name, but I can't remember the location or the time period. I got the impression that it was probably pre-Islamic. I think you're witnessing the flaky side of my Wikipedia presence; it's not intentional, mind you. ^_^; - Gilgamesh 05:57, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I don't claim to know every single pre-Islamic name, so I won't deny the possibility. But it does sounds suspicious; Nafiyah (with a y) in Arabic means "negating" or "banishing"! - Mustafaa 06:22, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I don't discount the possibility that I may have been mistaken about "Nafiyah". It doesn't matter anyway, as it's not relevant to the content of Hebrew name. :) - Gilgamesh 06:42, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Both "Nephi" and "Nafiyah" are supposed to be Egyptian loans, as I said before. If I recall, the Egyptian form was N-F-R, where the final R had evolved to Y by the time of the Coptic. So perhaps it can be found in Coptic records too, which would be especially good because Coptic is written with both consonants and vowels in Greek script. - Gilgamesh 05:57, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

That makes some sense... It can in fact: the Coptic form is noufe. The ou is believed to derive from ancient Egyptian a (via o, as in Phoenician. - Mustafaa 06:19, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

(or noufi in northern dialects.) - Mustafaa 06:50, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Susan/Shoshana comes from Hebrew for rose (See Shoshanas Yaakov, After Megillas Esther)--Shaul avrom 11:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Mormon Hebrew Names

Could you provide some more details on that? (In particular - which inscriptions, and what exact spellings are given in the inscriptions, so the reader can better judge the extent of the similarity?) - Mustafaa 23:27, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Sure, I have links to PDFs that talk all about it, with their own bibliographies. I just wasn't sure where to put the links, or whether to add the links before I could also add some neutral links to balance the NPOV of the links provided. Here are the links: [1] and [2] (LDS POV, but the scientific method is still very widely used).

Also, I'm sorry for "Phenomenon", I didn't know the right word to use. The reason I thought "phenomenon" is because many of the names don't appear in other books, but have been found in abundance in archaeological digs in Israel-Palestine. - Gilgamesh 01:01, 6 May 2004

Hmm... Looking through the first one, I notice a couple of problems: why would yrm be interpreted as "Jarom", when the Old Testament already has the name Joram[3]? And "Sariah" relies on a reconstruction of missing text; and one would expect Aha to be Acha, if the etymology is as proposed. Still, Alma and Aha are interesting. - Mustafaa 05:01, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Theoretically attributable to Israelite tribal dialects, maybe? Compare the study's comparison of "Mattaniah"/"Mathoniah", "Laman"/"Lamoni", etc. The habit where qamez becomes a more closed "o", whether in etymology or in inflection. Which syllable is stressed in "Joram"? That might give a clue. Though if YRM is reduced to "Yirm-" in "Yirmeyahu", then that suggests the emphasis is on the first syllable. The fact of the matter is, I don't know. :P The actual details of Mormon Hebrew tradition are only mentioned by the article, not endorsed by it. If necessary, we could refine that section's language to emphasize scientific non-endorsement. - Gilgamesh 07:22, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

The second link has a lot more names, but a lot less detail on the evidence for them, so there's no real way for me to judge it. - Mustafaa 05:08, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

More Proposed Names

Havatzelet (Habassaleth) - woman's name; means some kind of plant. - Mustafaa 00:02, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

I think it's okay to tentatively add names even if you don't know all the details (spellings, Tiberian vowels, etc.). If found, those details can be added later. Also, names don't have to be Hebrew-alphabetized right away. - Gilgamesh 01:01, 6 May 2004

I have never heard Havatzelet used as a name.--Shaul avrom 11:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Movement of Hebrew names list

I've just discovered that our ambitious new article is already larger than 30K. I suspect that the vast majority of that is the names list. Maybe we should move it to List of Hebrew names. For now, I can copy the list there, and if you all think it's proper, we can turn it into the permanent new home of the list. Hebrew name and List of Hebrew names can link to each other, so everything is peachy. - Gilgamesh 05:35, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Moving it sounds good to me! I worry that that too may grow longer than 30K, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. - Mustafaa 05:41, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Okay, the names are already on the other article. I'm clearing them off the main article now. - Gilgamesh 05:59, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

List conventions

I'm very happy with how the List of Hebrew names has been turning out so far, and how it's been growing. However, it occurred to me that perhaps we need a better concensus on how to format the list. Specifically, the format of each entry. Until now, I've been deciding this myself, hoping that I'm making the right choices. But there are aspects of the list format I'm not sure about. (It might help if these articles had greater input from a Hebrew-speaker or an Israeli.) Concerns:

• If a name starts with one of בגדכפת should both the soft and daghesh forms be listed (e.g. Par‘ōh/Phar‘ōh)? Or just one or the other? And if so, which one?
• If a name has multiple voicings (e.g. Yāredh/Yéredh), should we list both forms, or just the left form (less common but often used for introductions), or just the right form (more common but used more passively)?
• Should the phonemic (Tiberian) transliteration be on the left and the Sephardic (Israeli) transliteration be on the right? Or, should the phonemic be on the left and the Sephardic be on the right? I know there might be some people who would get rid of the phoneme representation altogether in favor of the Sephardic (I've had at least two of my edits reverted over that insistence), but I think both are relevant because one is detailed linguistics while the other is more lay-familiar.
• Should the Hebrew-script letters of each name be strongly emphasized?

- Gilgamesh 06:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, my two cents would be:

• Just the dagesh form; it's more the "default". But maybe add the KJV name?
• Dunno. Both, I guess...
• Did I revert those? If so, it was an accident - sorry! Listing both is fine with me, though adding familiar English versions - especially the KJV and Douay ones - might be good too.
• Not worth it - that would take too long to fix! :)

Mustafaa 06:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

My -$0.02 (^_^) is:

• Okay, daghesh-only it is. :)
• Well, I just wanted to see if there was disagreement.
• No, you didn't revert anything. The first reversion was when I added the phonemic transliteration to the Hebrew form of Jerusalem, and someone reverted my "pseudo-IPA" and admonished that I was not helping. The second reversion was when I added the phonemic transliteration to the Sephardi article; later, someone added details, and also casually removed the phonemic forms to leave only Sfardi and Sfardim. I suppose people don't agree on whether an ideal encyclopedia should be for lay people or for dry academics; personally, I think there is room for both interests. :)

- Gilgamesh 06:56, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Ah. Jerusalem is such a controversial article any edits need care... Maybe if we added a separate section on its name? It has at least four names in Arabic (one artifically imposed by Israel, one borrowed from Hebrew, one borrowed from Latin, and one native Arabic); maybe a section on the name could be worth putting... As for Sephardi, I'm betting someone couldn't see them on his screen, and assumed they were gibberish. I for one am totally in favor of academic detail; what's an encyclopedia for, otherwise? :) - Mustafaa 08:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's not of extreme importance to me; I was just miffed because my edit on the Jerusalem article was reverted. :P Later, I felt a little better after I made an edit that wasn't reverted (the two centers of learning located on Mount Scopus, as well as the new Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center article I created). - Gilgamesh 09:12, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

If you really want to get complete, you could always go through www.jcsm.org/StudyCenter/kjvstrongs/STRHEB2.htm... :) - Mustafaa 03:02, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

I just got a lot of the definitions from some dictionary. And I didn't copy them; I read them, committed them to memory, then fished them from my memory. So, it's from my memory. :P Besides, I added detail to quite a few, particularly the names with "'el-", "'eli-", "-'el", "yeho-", "-yahu", etc. Besides, I don't care where I get the definitions, as long as I get them, check more than one source, and make sure that more than one source agrees. :) Otherwise, I'd wrack my brains out... Until now, I've been big on phonology, and poor on definitions. :P The definitions, just like all the names, can be refined over time. :) - Gilgamesh 03:45, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

...did I do bad by consulting a dictionary? It didn't even occur to me that it might be improper. I mean...I'm not fluent in everything. Besides, I don't expect the definitions to stand 100% as I added them. If someone sees a mistake or a clearer phrasing, they can change it. ...I mean, was I wrong in taking that approach? I mean, what good is a dictionary if you can't use it? :P - Gilgamesh 04:42, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with consulting a dictionary! What are they gonna do, sue you for getting the spelling right? You can't copyright words, thankfully... - Mustafaa 06:09, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Hooray!!! \(^_^)/ - Gilgamesh 06:31, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Tetragrammaton

I've been thinking about this, and I think constantly using the Tetragrammaton in the two articles may be a bad idea, and may be offensive to many people browsing. Also, virtually every name affixed with the four letters has at least two possible forms; I can understand listing multiple forms for names like Mattanyahu/Mattayyahu and such, but it seems like a lot of clutter to list every Yo/Yeho- and -yah/yahu/ihah/etc. form. I wish we could come up with a sort of key...a shorthand affix for names with these spellings. And yet, using the spellings "יהוה" and "Yahweh" are unnacceptable to virtually every remotely devout religious Jew who browses these articles. It is unkosher to use them. What should we do? I can see potential NPOV arguments against hiding full forms of the Tetragrammaton, but I think it may be common courtesy so people won't feel enflamed by its random mention. - Gilgamesh 06:58, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Hmm... I don't know what to do about the former, but for the latter, why not just translate the word as "Lord", a la KJV? - Mustafaa 07:00, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Is the new wording "Hebrew devotion to the Tetragrammaton ..." intended to be taken literally, or is it a mistaken redition of "Hebrew devotion to the entity whose name is the Tetragrammaton ..."? --Zero 07:24, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

My mistake. I meant "devotion to the one whom the Tetragrammaton represents." When I say "the Tetragrammaton", I mean "the LORD", "Adonai", etc. Sorry about that. - Gilgamesh 07:52, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree. This article is part of the template on Judaism, and thus is very likely to be read by Jews. I am removing it right now, because I can't read it like this.--Doom777 23:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

More Font-friendly Phonemic Orthography

It has occurred to me that the Unicode characters ḤḥḪḫṬṭṢṣƏə are not very font-friendly, because most default fonts cannot supply these characters. Usually, such characters can only be found in massive fonts such as Arial Unicode MS, Caslon, etc. I propose replacing those characters in the phonemic transliteration of Hebrew with more font-friendly characters ĦħXxŢţŞş, all of which have Unicode values less than 0x180 (384), and can be displayed easily by default fonts. Ħħ is used (as far as I know) only in Maltese, but it's used for a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, which is perfect in this case. Xx is a simple replacement for Ḫḫ, which seems okay to me because Xx is often used anyway for transliteration of voiceless velar fricative in a variety of Middle-Eastern languages, including some other peoples' transliterations of Hebrew phonemes. Ţţ and Şş were not originally designed as pharyngeal glyphs, but they match Ṭṭ and Ṣṣ very well; besides, if they're good enough for Arabic names in commercial encyclopedias, they should be okay for Wikipedia. :) And as for Əə...I'm not sure what to do with it. It's not the same phoneme as Ĕĕ, although they are often transliterated the same. I'm thinking...maybe Ëë (which is used in Albanian as a schwa) or Cyrillic Ээ. Thoughts on all of this? - Gilgamesh 21:57, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good... how about a superscript ^e for schwa? I've seen that usage occasionally. - Mustafaa 22:12, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, it occurred to me... We could keep the real schwa Əə and it won't be so bad. Though the other "real" characters are indeed rarely supplied in fonts and hard to display, the real schwa is found in Palatino Linotype (serif) and Lucida Sans Unicode (sans-serif), both of which are distributed with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, right? So, maybe we won't have to use HTML tags like ^e. I think it's probably better to reduce the dependance of HTML in Wikipedia markup. :) ...Pardon me, my calico cat accidentally drooled on my keyboard; but fortunately, cat drool is thin, like water, and not very messy. - Gilgamesh 22:29, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Names of Hebrew Origin

Some names ending with -el like the two listed are also the names of angels according to the Kabbalah and of archangels according to Christianity. I think this is worth mentioning, but I don't know whether their usage for people or for angels came first. Probably the latter, because these names are not traditional among Jews, and their current usage by Jews seems to be mimicking the Gentiles. - Lev 20:12, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Invitation for Hebrew linguistics project participation

Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism is trying to decide all Hebrew linguistics issues for Wikipedia by themselves. But Hebrew is not purely the realm of Judaism; it is also the realm of Samaritans, Christians and Abrahamic religion as a whole, and also secular Canaanite languages studies. I'm trying to challenge mono-cultural mono-sectarian dominance over a linguistic field that we all should be sharing together. I invite you to participate in trying to pluralize Hebrew language conventions for Wikipedia. In particular, not only is Tiberian Hebrew transliteration challenged, but also Standard Hebrew transliteration, as some people want to use only Israeli Hebrew colloquial transliteration or Ashkenazi Hebrew liturgical transliteration. I think these are perfectly valid and worthy of participation, but not at the total expense of every other Hebrew linguistics study concern. Please support a multi-religious multi-cultural scientific NPOV mandate for studying Hebrew linguistics on Wikipedia. - Gilgamesh 02:57, 18 July 2004 (UTC)

Family name

Perhaps I am missing something, but shouldn't this article discuss Hebrew family name structure, i.e. the convention of refering to men as so-and-so ben so-and-so and women as so-and-so bat so-and-so? --agr 11:18, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Luke as a Greek Jewish name

IIRC, most people believe that Luke was not a Jew at all. Unless someone can find another Jewish example of a Luke, I recommend substituting the name Stephen/Stephanos. I believe most people speculate that St. Stephen was a proselyte before converting to Christianity. (The Book of Acts may even say this, but I don't recall.) One might want to find an example of a Jew by birth of that era with such a name. I'm thinking that the name Philip, which belonged to at least two Christians (an apostle, and "Philip the Evangelist") might be an example, but someone should look into it to see if I'm right.

In any case, Luke was not an apostle, and I will remove that from the article. 199.176.87.2 15:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

== Hmmm. A doctor in the Diaspora, who knew? With a non-Jewish name (who ever heard of such a thing?) that means "white," and alliterates with "Laban" and "Levi." And his Gospel has more original material, and more Hebraisms, than any of the other Synoptics. Oh, and if he was a Gentile, he would be the only New Testament author who was not Jewish. Though I guess if you consider a non-Jewish name and residence out of country evidence, yeah, pretty sure he was a Gentile ;-) Alfarero (talk) 22:34, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

1.) What Hebraisms? Matthew is widely regarded as being more "Hebraic" because it is aimed for a Jewish audience. 2.) It is the vast consensus that the Gospels were not written by the people attributed to them. 3.) Luke comes from Leukos which is the Greek version of Lucius, which is an exceedingly common Greco-Roman name. 4.) Mark's name is similarly based on the Greco-Roman name Markos/Marcus, so if we're going by names he would be another non-Jewish author of a Gospel.Bagabondo (talk) 05:11, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Jewish names

This article seems to be totally about the etymology and origin of names. I have no problem at all with that, but I'd like to see something about the Jewish practice of having a specifically Jewish name for religious purposes. That practice is mentioned only very lightly here. My question is if this is a good place to amplify it, or if a separate article is a better idea. In any case, I think that the "Jewish lifecycle" box at the bottom is appropriate only for an article containing that info. (PS: The ideas I've expresed here are very similar to the unanswered questions of AGR, in the "Family name" section above, see there.) --Keeves 11:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

What happened to the list of Hebrew names?

What happened to the list of Hebrew names article that used to be linked to from this page and was a very handy resource? Has it moved or has some vandal deleted it? BroadArrow 00:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

It was voted to be deleted because, even though they might be handy, huge lists of names are outside the scope of an encyclopedia. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of given names 2. The list currently resides on Wiktionary at wikt:Appendix:Hebrew given names. DopefishJustin 22:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll check it out there. BroadArrow 09:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Modern Hebrew names?

This list says nothing of modern Hebrew names. By this, I mean names that were created by people in Modern Isael, which do not have a long history. Seing as these names are very common in modern Israel, there should be something written about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.100.181.91 (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Greek

This article said that "eis/is" is Greek for "powerful," or something of the sort. It actually means "into." With rough breathing (which renders it "heis" in Roman letters) it means one. Liddell & Scott confirm this, as do other lexica. Additionally, "rha" does not mean "king." It basically translates as "right away." "El," as far as my research indicates, does not stand for "Helios." It is simply a Canaanite/Phoenician/Hebrew word meaning "strength," or "god." I will concede that later on into the Koine period, when sun-worship came into vogue, it may have come into use as an abbreviation, but I can't find any evidence for it. I find the second Greek definition of "Emmanuel" to be similarly suspicious, but less of a stretch. I have deleted the "Greek" translation of Israel, because as near as I can tell, it's nothing but rot. messor (talk) 07:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted the uncited information about the name "Emmanuel" again, for reasons stated above. messor (talk) 15:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

An interesting way of forming names - should we elaborate on it?

Our article Maharam says that it "is an acronym of the words ...מורנו הרב רבי מ (Morenu Ha-Rav rabi M..., Our teacher the Rabbi M...)." I've never heard of names that are formed from a standard formula + one initial as the distinguishing last letter before. When I asked about it at WP:RD/H, User:Deor made me aware that there are also combinations with names that start with other letters than Mem: "Two such are "Maharal" for Judah Loew ben Bezalel and "Maharash" for either Meir Wahl or Shmuel Schneersohn." I'd like to somehow preserve this information for our readers, and it seems the best place to add this would be here. Are there any objections to this? Another reply in the RD thread made me aware that this way of forming names doesn't seem to stick out as much to other people. — Sebastian 20:22, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the place where this would fit best is Hebrew acronyms#People. Deor (talk) 14:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the good suggestion. — Sebastian 22:26, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Conversion

What's the convention for acquiring a Jewish name upon conversion? kencf0618 (talk) 15:06, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Judeo-Aramaic?

The section on Aramaic states without attestation that Judeo-Aramaic was the lingua franca of Israel in the first century. This is nineteenth-century speculation that has been grandfathered in as truth, and it is now being questioned on archaeological grounds. It seems more likely that Aramaic was in second or third place with Hebrew and Greek, especially in Judea, and that Hebrew was spoken in the marketplace and taught in schools. I do not have time to document this right now, but I have made a tentative edit to the section. Please respect my edit and get sources to establish the true situation as time permits.