Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

Our first child was born last week. As you can imagine we spent quit a bit of time trying to find the right name for the baby. In the process we consulted all three books the library has on the topic. Two of them were published in 1989. “The complete book of Hebrew baby names” by Smadar Shir Sidi contains more than 5,000 traditional and contemporary Hebrew names. It also has four 1-2 page long essays on how to choose a name, what are the considerations about naming the baby after a relative, what the most popular names are and how to conduct the naming ceremony. The appendixes include names from the Jewish calendar, names that work in English as well, and my favorite is a set of suggestions on what to name twins. The author acknowledges that triplets are even more difficult to name. The listof names are separated by gender. Each name has a short explanation of origin and meaning. For biblical names the annotation includes the reference where the name appears in the Tanakh.

The second book from the same year is Anita Diamant‘s “What to name your Jewish baby.” She devotes 30 pages to the various issues before jumping into the list. In addition to the topics the first book covers, she also talks about the dichotomy of sacred and secular, superstition, fashion and adoption. The list of names is slightly shorter, but it includes alternative spellings and possible nicknames.

The third book, also from Anita Diamant, is much more than a name book. “The new Jewish baby book,” from 2005, devotes only one chapter to names. Here is an explanatory segment from the introduction:

Drawn from the wealth of mythic, historic, religious, culinary, and literary traditions that surround the arrival of a new Jewish baby, and informed by contemporary insight and practice, The New Jewish Baby Book describes the many ways that new parents can celebrate the arrival of a child, the newest member of your extended families, and a unique and precious chapter in the on-going saga of the Jewish people.