Sticks & Stones

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  From a very early age, we’ve all been taught that name-calling is bad.  We shouldn’t do it.  When someone calls us names, we should find it within ourselves to ignore it.  But, there’s more than one kind of name-calling.

The truth is that when parents choose names for their children, they are performing a sacred act.

I’ve always been interested in how we all choose names for our children.  Perhaps, this is the result of the name that my parents gave me.  My three older siblings have typical American/English names.  Then, seemingly out of the blue, my parents gave me the name Avi.  

Now, I know that they named me after my grandfather, who passed away a few years before I was born.  They decided to give me his actual name rather than pick a name that started with the same letter.  I get it.  It’s interesting to note, though, that the one kid with the Hebrew name ended up becoming a rabbi. Hmmm....

In this week’s Torah portion, God gets involved in the name game.  Avram and Sarai entered into a covenant with God, and God immediately changed their names.  Instead of Avram and Sarai, they became known as Avraham and Sarah.  In both cases, this change was effectuated by adding one single letter to their names – ה.  The letter ‘hey’ in Hebrew is one of the letters used to represent the name of God in shorthand.  So, adding a ‘hey’ to each of their names announced that God was with them.

Although there is no obligation to have a Hebrew or Jewish name, it has been the custom for so long that it feels like a law.  Joseph had both a Hebrew name and an Egyptian name once he entered into the service of the Pharaoah.  Esther was a Persian name, but she was also known as Hadassah.  In truth, there really are no Jewish laws about naming in general.  However, there are many traditions surrounding this important decision.

The custom of naming a child after parents or grandparents dates back to the 6th Century BCE in Egypt.  Israelites most likely ‘borrowed’ this custom from their Egyptian neighbors.  The Ashkenazi (Eastern European) custom is to name a child after a relative who has passed away in order to perpetuate the memory of that loved one.  The Sephardi (Western European) custom is to name a child after a living relative in order to honor that person in life.

In modern America, it has become most common to give the baby the same Hebrew name as the person honored, but then give a different secular name (often starting with the same consonantal sound).  Some families use the Hebrew name to honor one person and the English name to honor a second person.   Of course, sometimes, we choose a name simply because we like.

One of my favorite parts of guiding people through conversion to Judaism is helping them choose their Hebrew names.  After all, most of us don’t get to pick our own names.  

No matter how a name is chosen, the words of Pirke Avot 4:17 apply: ‘Rabbi Shimon taught: there are three crowns – the crown of Torah, the crown of Priesthood and the crown of Royalty.  The crown of a good name surpasses them all.’

Shalom, RAF.