The Selection of Jewish Children's Names - Some Emendations

<plain_text><page sequence="1">The Selection of Jewish Children's Names? Some Emendations EDGAR R. SAMUEL, F.R.Hist.S. 1. The Portuguese Jewish naming custom In my paper 'New Light on the Selection of Jewish Children's Names'1 I set out the Portuguese Jewish naming custom. As far as I know this is correctly stated in respect of the first and second child of each sex; in this case, the information culled from seventeenth and eighteenth century genealogies was confirmed by contemporary personal testimony. How? ever, I went astray in respect of the third and fourth children, where I relied on genealogies alone, without the confirmation of personal recollection. The examples I gave all relate to the children of younger sons, and further examination of the evidence shows that in an eldest son's family the practice was different. The third son of an eldest son was not normally given his great-grandfather's name. For exam? ple, the children of Raphael de Abraham Mendes da Costa (1742-1788),2 of Amsterdam, were named as follows: MENDES DA COSTA Isaac Franco^ Mendes ^Esther RaphaeI===Rachel Daniel= Abarbanel de Souza ^Deborah Judica===Abraham Jacob Moses= RAPHAEL (1742-1788)= 1760 =Sarah ^RACHEL (1742-1778) Abraham Sarah Moses Haim Aron Judith Sarah Jacob Samuel Emanuel b. 1762 b. 1763 b. 1764 Abraham b. 1766 b. 1767 b. 1768 b. 1770 b. 1775 b. 1778 b. 1765 In this family the first two children of each sex are named after their grandparents but the girls are named in reverse order, the name of the maternal grandmother, Sarah Abarbanel de Souza, being put ahead of that of the paternal grandmother, Judica Franco Mendes, who had died in 1762. The reason seems to have been a desire to give the living grandmother the honour of standing as godmother at the eldest granddaughter's naming ceremony.3 When Abraham and Sarah died in infancy, their names were reissued to a young brother and sister, the name 'Haim' being added to i Trans.JHSE, XXIII, p. 65. 2 Based on a MS. genealogy of the Mendes da Costa family by Mr. Armand Mendes da Costa, of New Zealand. 3 For the very charming Sephardi ceremony for naming a daughter see Book of Prayer of the Spanish &amp; Portuguese Jews' Congregation, London (Oxford, 1958), p. 180. 171</page><page sequence="2">172 Edgar R. Samuel 'Abraham' as a safeguard. Sarah, being a name of good omen, was left alone. The name of the third son, Aron, presumably came from the family of one of the grandmothers, probably the paternal one, and Jacob is the name of his mother's third brother, as well as of her uncle. For her eldest brother, Abraham's name had been used already and her second brother, Daniel, was dead. From this and other examples it is clear that the custom was far less rigid than I represented it to be. Whereas it was normal for younger children to be named after their uncles and aunts, usually in order of seniority, or even, as in the case of Abigail Ricardo,4 after a great-grandmother, the sequence was sometimes varied. However, children were nearly always named after their relations, the third and fourth children, whom I assumed to be named after their great-grandparents, being probably in fact named after their eldest uncles and aunts. I feel that I ought now to state the Portuguese Jewish custom again, so as to correct my mistake. This is as follows: (1) Children are named after their forebears. (2) The first child of each sex is normally named after its paternal grandparent. (3) The second child of each sex is normally named after its maternal grandparent. (4) Younger children are named after their uncles and aunts, usually in order of seniority, or after other close relatives. (5) Where custom obliges, children sometimes bear the same name as their parents. (6) A posthumous child is named after its deceased parent. The Portuguese Jewish custom seems to have been very similar to that of the present-day Sephardi Jews of Gibraltar, except in the case of (5) and presumably it was like that of the Jews of mediaeval Spain too. The resemblance of the Sephardi custom to the Scottish, Irish, and Dutch ones which I reported is only superficial and the motive behind the Sephardi practice does not seem to be genealogical so much as a desire to confer honour on one's parents and relations. 2. Prayers to the Dead I blamed Chassidism for the superstitious folk practice of addressing prayers to the dead.5 It appears that this is quite incorrect and that it is a very much older Ashkenazi aberration, which was condemned by R. Meir of Rothenberg in the thirteenth century.6 3. The Sons of King Edmund Ironside The suggestion I made7 that Edward son of Edmund Ironside must have been older than his brother Edmund receives partial con? firmation from the annals of Florence of Worcester, where they are listed in that order as the 'young athelings Edward and Edmund, the sons of King Edmund'.8 4 Trans.JHSE, XXIII, p. 65, Table A. 5 Ibid., p. 83. 6 Herman Pollack, Jewish Folkways in Germanic Lands (1648-1806) (Cambridge, Mass), 1971, p. 49, cites R. Meir ben Barukh's Responsa (Lwow, 1860), 13a, No. 164. 7 Trans.JHSE, XXIII, p. 76. 8 See D. Whitelock, English Historic Documents (London, 1955), Vol. I, pp. 285-286.</page></plain_text>