Jewish baby names – some guidelines on how to pick one

Choosing Jewish baby names is a complicated process. Naming any child is a statement of character and something that will stay with the child forever. It's possibly the only thing that you will ever truly control with your child - unless of course he or she becomes hugely famous and decides to opt for their own choice – perhaps something like Elton….It can also be really difficult to reach consensus with your partner.

When my wife and I were choosing a name for our son we found that working from a book full of names was the surest way of not reaching agreement. We therefore came up with these general guidelines:

• We wanted the name of our baby to be both a statement of what we hope he will become as well as where he came from

• As Ashkenazi Jews we decided to name our baby after a deceased relative. As mentioned in an earlier post Sephardi Jews often name after the living. I also know of many people that name their babies based on a Jewish holiday coinciding with the birth or the Torah portion corresponding to the week of the birth

• We gave a lot of thought to the meaning of the name so that it might have a positive effect on his future. You might want to check out this site dedicated to Jewish baby names as it gives the meanings to a lot of names

• We wanted our son to have a Hebrew name that could be used in English too

• We wanted the name to be unusual but not too unusual!

Now these are very personal guidelines that we used and I’m not suggesting that anyone must use them when looking for their Jewish baby names. Everyone will have their own view on what is important. The point is it can be very difficult naming a Jewish baby. There are often many pressures from ones family and you and your partner may have differing views. That’s why my wife and I felt the best way to reach agreement was to put down on paper our joint objectives and work from those guidelines to reach agreement. It seemed to work!

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Jewish baby names depends on what type of Jew you are

Did you know that Sephardi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews have a very different philosophy about Jewish baby names? First, for those of you that don’t know let me explain the difference between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. A Sephardi Jew is one that originates in Spain or Portugal but has also come to include Jews of Arabic and Persian background. An Ashkenazi Jew originates from Germany, many of whom later migrated to Eastern Europe and then the UK and US.

So, what’s the point? Well, there is a very big difference when it comes to Jewish baby names. Ashkenazi Jews generally name their children after deceased relatives whereas Sephardi Jews name their children after living relatives.

If you are a Sephardi Jew, your first child is traditionally named after the fathers parents, and then the mothers parent's names are next for later kids. Once all 4 are used there are no more naming conventions. The most important principle common to both Sephardim and Ashkenazim is that a baby should not be named after their own parents. As such Sephardim will not follow their rules if one of the spouses shares a common first name with the others parents.

If you are an Ashkenazi Jew you name your baby after a deceased relative. This is to keep the name and memory alive of that person and to form a bond between the soul of your baby and the deceased relative.

This difference must make for an interesting issue if one spouse is a Sephardi and the other an Ashkenazi! Would be great to hear from any one out there who has or knows of this situation.

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Popular Jewish Baby Names

I recently undertook a really interesting exercise to find out what the most popular Jewish baby names are in the US today. Now, I recognize that “popular “will be either a positive or negative depending on you. To generalize, I think a lot of expectant parents are looking for unusual names but perhaps not too unusual.

As you can imagine it is difficult to come up with a conclusive list of popular Jewish baby names without scrolling through the birth announcements across thousands of local Jewish newspapers – something I don’t have time to do. I estimate that nearly 90,000 Jewish babies are born in the US each year. How do I come to that number? Well, according to the US Social Security Administration (SSA) approximately 4.2 million babies are born in the US each year and according to the Jewish Agency approximately 2.1% of the US population is Jewish. So 2.1%of 4.2 million is 88,200.

The (SSA) has a great webpage which gives the most popular baby names by birth year and decade. The results are fascinating when you compare the difference between male and female Jewish baby names. As you will see below you can find the top 10 Jewish baby boys names within the first 16 for of the whole US but you have to go through the top 50 before you find the same for Jewish baby girl names. Anyway, here are the top 10 Jewish baby names for boys and girls according to the SSA:

Boys Names			Girls Names
SSA rank			SSA rank
1	Jacob		4	Isabella
2	Michael		6	Abigail
3	Joshua		8	Hannah
4	Ethan		10	Samantha
5	Matthew		11	Elizabeth
6	Daniel		15	Sarah
11	Joseph		32	Jessica
13	David		33	Lily
15	Noah		49	Rachel
16	James		50	Gabriella

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Jewish Baby Names

There are thousands of Jewish baby names but you might have arrived on my blog because you’re struggling to work out what to call your baby or whether he or she should even have a Jewish name. Perhaps you’re not Jewish and are interested in Jewish baby names. I don’t know but please tell me in the comment section below. What I do know is being a member of the chosen people sure has its complications – sorting through Jewish baby names has been one of them for me. Most couples find it hard enough to agree on one name but there are many Jewish folks trying to agree on 2!

My wife and I struggled when it came to finding a name for our son. We had so many questions - should we give him a first name and a Hebrew name? Should the first name be a Jewish name? Should the first name and the Hebrew name be the same? Should we name him after someone? If we did, should the first name or the Hebrew name be after that person? When should we tell people about the name? And so the questions went on.

So the reason I have set up this blog on Jewish baby names is to give you some help based on my experience. In future posts I am not intending to simply give you a list of Jewish baby names but rather point you in the right direction and hopefully help you make your decision. Remember one thing though - whatever the decision ends up being it will be the right one.

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