The Fourteenth International Conference on Jewish Names - Abstract Booklet (English) (original) (raw)
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Marginal Notes to Tal Ilan's Lexicon of Late Antique Jewish Names from the Western Diaspora
Tsur, 2013
I. Introduction This bulky volume is chronologically the second to appear in a multi-volume project. Vol. 1 appeared in 2002, and is devoted to Jewish names from Palestine (or Syria) from the beginning of the Hellenistic era to 200 C.E. In contrast, Vol. 3, under review here, arrives up to the Muslim conquest, and "collect[s] the names of Jews who originate in the Western Diaspora I define the Western Diaspora linguistically, i.e. the lands in which Jews spoke primarily Greek and Latin. These included practically the entire Mediterranean Basin, as well as some inroads into Western and Eastern Europe, as far as the northern coast of the Black Sea in the east and Wales in the west. Coinciding with this Diaspora, and east of it was a vast Jewish dispersion that spoke primarily Aramaic, and later also Arabic. The Jewish names from these regions will be collected in Part IV" (1). "Every person who has been in the past identified as Jewish by somebody [in scholarship over the past four centuries] has been recorded in this study" (2), yielding 5649 persons, but "for the actual statistics I have used very strict criteria" (2), and only 2531 persons were included. In Vol. 1, "women constituted only 11.2% of the population" (2), whereas in Vol. 3 they are "21.8% (of the valid population") (2). "This is probably due to the fact that this volume is comprised primarily of documentary texts (inscriptions and papyri), many of them funerary inscriptions, in which women are, as a rule, documented more than in literary sources" (2). With respect to Vol. 1, in Vol. 3 the rubrics in the prosopography within the entries include one more rubric: "Provenance. Under this rubric it is stated from which Diaspora country the person hails" (2). II. On some biblical names "While it was noted that in Palestine the name Abraham was never used, in the Diaspora, especially in Egypt, it was quite common and popular" (4). Ilan counted 24 occurrences in Vol. 3. "Of these, 20 are from Egypt" (4). "Of the 60 Isaacs [in Vol. 3] 44 are from Egypt. Of the 74 Jacobs 50 are from Egypt" (4). The name Joseph is the most popular name in Vol. 3, with 116 occurrences; "Judah 90second, according to frequency among the valid male Jews, fifth among the entire recorded population" (4). "Another name that was not used in Palestine at all, but that seems to have had a different fate in the Diaspora was Moses" (4), even though, Ilan concedes, the occurrences are not unproblematic. See T. Derda, "Did the Jews Use the Name of Moses in Antiquity?", Zeitschrift für Papyriologie und Epigraphik, 115 (1997), pp. 257-260. Ilan also cites (in fn. 4 on p. 4) "Williams, ZPE 118 (1997)", but that other bibliographical entry is missing from p. xxvi, where other entries by Williams do appear. Whereas in Vol. 1, "[p]ersons bearing biblical names outnumbered all the others by more than double" (3), in Vol. 3 "[b]oth Greek and Latin names were more popular in Greekand Latinspeaking countries than were biblical names" (3). Whereas Hebrew names suggest Jewishness more strongly than other names (in the absence of other evidence), Christianisation implied that some biblical names were also borne by non-Jews.
Palestinian First Names: An Introduction
Names, 1989
An analysis of the first names of 768 Palestinian school children from the West Bank and from within the Green Line reveals 341 different names. The inventory of these names indicates the usual form of the name as transcribed into the Roman alphabet, pronunciation, frequency, meaning, and perceived identification ("Christian," "Moslem," or "Neutral"). Additional analysis evaluates Christian vs. Moslem usage, determines the perceived identification, and identifies the most popular names. ***** First names (also referred to as proper names, given names, forenames, and "christian" names) have been extensively studied. One of the many reasons for studying them is that the names of a culture tell us something about that culture and the values of the name-bestowers. One culture that has been so far somewhat neglected is Arabic culture. The names of prominent people from the Middle East have regularly appeared in the Western press and other media, and first names such as Anwar,Ali, Hussein, and Samir, as well as Laila, Muna, N adya, and Su 'ad, have become familiar to all of us. To the Western ear, some of these names sound exotic, others perhaps harsh and strange. Virtually all of the names have a meaning, a tradition, and a history which should be of interest to the concerned scholar. At present, there is no complete source either in English or in Arabic that gives much assistance on Palestinian names. An excellent book in French, by Eugene Vroonen, describes Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Coptic, Jewish, and Armenian names, but not specifically Palestinian names. An introductory article by Evelyn Paxton and brief works by Fatima S. AI-Ja'fari and M. A. Kazi give some information on Arabic names, English spelling, Arabic spelling, and meaning (AI-J a'fari also gives some information on pronunciation). But there are some deficiencies in these 245 246 H. Tushyeh, E. Lawson, and G. Rishmawi references: no. easy guide far pro.nunciatio.n, no. info.rmatio.n an the frequency o.feach name. Ano.ther Arabic culture which has•received same scho.larly attentio.n is Egypt. Samia H. EI-Sa'aty, in her descriptio.n and analysis o.fEgyptian names, sets up a system with fifteen catego.ries, such as Religio.us, Natio.nal, Leaders, Fo.lklo.re, and Aspiratio.ns. While• these catego.ries are useful far Egypt, they do. nat easily apply to. Palestinian names because o.fthe many differences in the two cultures. It is also. true that the Egyptian study had rather limited samples. The emphasis o.f the studies o.f AI-J a'fari and Kazi is an Mo.slem rather than Arabic names, resulting in a lack o.f co.verage far the whale culture. Further, neither pro.vides any info.rmatio.n an perceived identificatio.n o.f each name as "Christian," "Mo.slem," o.r "Neutral." It sho.uld be no.ted that in the Arab wo.rld, many first names are perceived as being "Christian" o.r"Mo.slem" with names used by bath gro.ups being regarded as "Neutral." An investigatio.n o.f Palestinian names wo.uld have to.include bath Christian and Mo.slem samples with, o.fco.urse, bath sexes being represented. Palestinians o.ften discuss the relative frequency o.f names. We so.metimes hear that Mohammad and Ali amo.ng Mo.slems and George and Michael amo.ng Christians are as papular as John in the Western wo.rld. But just haw co.mmo.nare these names? In this investigatio.n we will attempt to. answer this questio.n and o.thers. Our basic purpo.se in this investigatio.n is to. evaluate representative samples o.fPalestinian names fro.m the West Bank and fro.m Arabs within the Green Line 2 by religio.us gro.up and by sex. The specific purpo.ses are to.: 1. Do. an invento.ry o.fnames currently in use. 2. Shaw the current pro.nunciatio.n far each name. 3. Shaw the frequency o.feach name. 4. Shaw the perceived identificatio.n o.f each name, i.e., whether it is usually perceived as "Christian," "Mo.slem," o.r "Neutral." We wished to. answer the fo.llo.wingquestio.ns: 1. Are mare "Christian" names used by Christians, mare Jones families, coming from Mexico, Maine, settled in Canada around 1813 and founded the locality of New Mexico (Quebec). Anyone who may know any biographical information concerning these four pioneers is invited to write to:
Review on Vol.1 of Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names
Tsur, 2003
Reviewed by Ephraim Nissan This is the first of four volumes by Tal Ilan in late antique Jewish onomastics and prosopography. The project she has undertaken is meritorious and very ambitious. That is to say, the project is interested in collecting and discussing the names, as well as enumerating and quite concisely describing their bearers. The temporal span of this volume is from the conquest by Alexander the Great and the inception of Hellenistic rule in Palestine and the Near East, to a rounded date for the close of the Mishnaic period, at the transition from Rome's Antonine dynasty to the Severan one, this being the end of the early Roman Empire. Ilan's sources are literary (the early rabbinic literature, Josephus, and the Gospels), or epigraphic, or papyrological (such as the Babatha Archive from near the Dead Sea). An introduction comprises eight sections, with four levels of subdivision. Then, couples of chapters follow (for male names and then female names), each couple of chapters being for, in turn, Biblical Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Persian names borne by Jews (in that order), and then other (mostly Semitic) names in the Hebrew or Greek alphabet. This comes before an "Appendix-Ha Names", whose entries are for such names that begin by the Hebrew determinative article. Sometimes, she has to reconstruct the vowels by conjecture: she does not elaborate on her choice to interpret הנדוד HNDWD as "Ha-Nadud" (in the past participle) rather than (a form she does not mention) "Ha-Nadod" (the plural of that lexical pattern would be *hannadodot) as an agent noun for 'the wanderer' (445-446). Transcribing הרצחן ("the murderer") on p. 447 as "Ha-Rashan" is misleading, as sh here stands not for š, but rather for ṣḥ. After the Appendix comes an "Addendum" with further instances in the prosopography (i.e., further persons who bear a given name), and the longest addition is an entry for the name Ριων (Rion) on pp. 451-453. And then there are two indices. The book makes for fascinating reading. Sometimes we come across, say, a buried man bearing a Greek name, Epictetus (277), whereas his father bears a Biblical Hebrew name, Seth, not usually thought of as being borne other than the biblical character. I wonder whether there was avoidance, in circles under Pharisee and then rabbinic control, of the name Seth because of the importance given that biblical character by some sectarians (think of the role of Seth among the Sethians), just as Enoch and Melchizedek were somewhat frowned upon, and anyway demoted, in rabbinic circles because of what sectarians made of Enoch, and Christians made of Melchizedek. The entries for Greek names have a header in the Greek alphabet (as per modern typographical conventions, thus not in all capitals) with a Romanisation that replaces the Greek suffix-os with the Latin suffix-us (as per a widespread convention). If occurrences are in the Hebrew alphabet, they are each given in the respective subentry for the person concerned who bears that given name. The subentries sequence is followed by a sequence of endnotes within the entry. Sometimes it takes conjecture to connect an occurrence such as אפקשיון ('PQŠYWN)which by the way, is possibly a way now some would transcribe the English word affection (but more correctly: אפקשון 'PQŠWN)to the Greek name Εὐξᾱ (Euxa) in the entry's header (278). The replacement of the ending with-ion is commented upon in the introduction's §2.4.3.3 on p. 27. One comes upon, among female Hebrew names ending by-it (see §2.4.4.1 on p. 27, and §6.2, "Doubtful Persons", on pp. 47-48), the name Likhlukhit (from a lexical base for 'dirt') in an apocryphal funny (and very sexist) story that appears in the Babylonian Talmud, but involving a Tannaitic Sage from the Land of Israel. The entry is on p. 422. The name became Cinderella's, in modern times in a Hebrew-language context. (See in that entry the typo "Ishamael" for "Ishmael".) Another fictitious name is that of Ṣafnat bat Peniel (425), in a tale about the raped daughter of the high priest in the wake of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. Her name was apparently invented in order to suit a homiletic interpretation. Another dubious character is Asenas (431),
The Notion of ‘Jewish Surnames’
Journal of Jewish Languages, 2018
This article discusses the notion of ‘Jewish surnames,’ considering it to be synonymous to the expression ‘surnames borne by Jews.’ This can be particularly helpful if we want the definition to add real value for the search of etymologies. The article describes most important peculiarities of Jewish surnames, categories of names that are exclusively Jewish, and various cases when a surname is shared by both Jews and non-Jews. It shows that certain alternative definitions of the notion of ‘Jewish surnames’ (such as surnames found in all Jewish communities, surnames used by Jews only, surnames based on specifically Jewish linguistic elements) either have internal inconsistencies or are useless and sometimes misleading for the scientific analysis of the etymologies of these surnames.
Tsur , 2013
I. Introduction This second volume has appeared as being the last, chronologically, of a four-volume project, Ilan's research for which began in 1982. The first volume was published in 2002. The outcome is monumental. The temporal span covered by the volume under review is from the end of the Mishnaic era, to the Islamic conquest. In the "Introduction", in its early part, for some sections there is simply a pointer to the corresponding section in Vol. 1. The section on gender explains that this Vol. 2 includes in its prosopography "173 valid females and 1934 valid males, namely women constitute only 8.2% of the entire valid Jewish population" (2), the lowest rate women have in comparison to the other three volumes. The introduction has a longer section about the Samaritans. Ilan decided to include them systematically in this volume, which includes an addendum chapter for each of the other three volumes. In the main corpus in the volume under review, and in its addendum for Vol. 1, she included (among others) 118 Samaritans further to the 34 of Vol. 1. The reason for the Samaritan more conspicuous presence in the period considered "is not only a reflection of the source situation, but also results from historical developments in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, which witnessed the emergence of a powerful and much admired Samaritan leader-Baba Rabba (3 rd-4 th C). This brought about the territorial expansion of the Samaritans to regions way beyond their prescribed territory […] and eventually triggered the outburst of the three (or four) bloody Samaritan revolts against the Byzantine empire" (3) "Samaritans were less prone than Jews to use biblical names" (3), and "Samaritans were more prone to use Greek […] and especially Latin […] names" (3), even though more borne Greek than Latin names, among both Jews and Samaritans. Were the Samaritans more Hellenised? "Why this was so, and if this is a reflection of a real situation, or the state of our sources, is very hard to decide" (3). In the period covered by Vol. 2, Jews were excluded from Jerusalem, "Jews moved in droves to pagan cities […], and even cities which were predominantly Jewish […], were at the same time the home of a large non-Jewish population. Also, Greek as the spoken language of Jews gained in prominence" (4). With respect to Vol. 1, admittedly in Vol. 2 deciding who was Jewish was more difficult, because Christians were using biblical names. As more convincing markers of Jewishness, Ilan used "[t]he use of Hebrew, and also the use of the Jewish script in Aramaic" (4) rather than the use of the Syriac script. Other factors helped Ilan in identification. Whereas earlier on, names of very prominent biblical heroes (Abraham and Moses) were avoided when naming a baby, out of reverence, in contrast once removed (Isaac) or twice removed (Jacob) characters were not tabooised. Ilan recorded in "vol. 1 only 7 valid Isaacs" (6), whereas in Vol. 2, Isaac, "with 62 candidates, it has become the 4 th most popular name, much like in the Western Diaspora" (6). In Vol. 1, Hasmonean names had been prominent among pre-200 Jews in Palestine, but were rare in the Diaspora; in Vol. 2, "the influence of the Hasmonean heroes was losing ground in Palestine as well but it was still very prominent" (6). As for the name Judah, in Vol. 2 it is the most popular male name (in Vol. 1, it was the third most popular). In Vol. 1, "women bearing biblical names constituted 51.1%. In this volume the picture changes completely. Twenty female-biblical names are recorded, constituting only 11.7% of the entire women name-pool […] and borne by 81
Reconstructing a cultural heritage: The return of biblical personal names in Israel
Onoma, 2020
The article shows a cultural reconstruction in Israel, which is evident in personal names used in recent years. Modern Hebrew names were compared to biblical names, regarding their grammatical and semantic characteristics. According to the findings of the study, a great number of names originate in the Bible, whether using existing names or adopting common biblical nouns as personal names. From the grammatical point of view, new names present the same patterns as biblical names, i.e. combining roots with known templates or using existing words for compound names. The prefixes and suffixes used today to distinguish between male and female names are also the same as in the Bible. From the semantic point of view, the same domains as in biblical names are used in the modern ones. The main semantic fields are theophoric names, zoological and botanic nouns, names inspired by nouns from nature, as well as toponyms.
Syllabus Jewish Names 2018.docx
This class is an introduction to Jewish names and naming, including baby names, family names, name changing, name popularity, and Jewish organization/program names. We will analyze these using basic tools of onomastics (the study of names), linguistics (the study of language), and social science. The course will also include some practical rabbinics.
Dictionary of American Family Names (ed. Patrick Hanks, Simon Lenarčič, and Peter McClure). Second edition. 5 vols. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, vol. 1, pp. CXLI-CXLVIII, 2022
The paper provides an overview of the development of the family names used by Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Mizrahi Jews. It also includes an overview of the Jewish immigration to the United States and names changes among immigrants.