Good secular name | Imamother

Boys"R"Us

Wed, Mar 14 2007, 12:27 am

Esther01 - I love that idea! I think Sim is a great choice :-) It is easy to read/pronounce and has a definite masculine sound.

It reminds me a bit of my sons name... Avishai. On his birth certificate, it just says "Avi"

B'sha'ah tovah to the OP!

sarahd

Wed, Mar 14 2007, 5:33 am

My cousin Simcha calls himself Sy in his business life.

How about Cyrus? Stuart?

Why does the name have to be similar to Simcha? Why not take any name that appeals to you?

shanie5

Wed, Mar 14 2007, 10:28 am

my son is chaim simcha. and that is what it says on his birth certificate. I also have a chana, menucha, and yirmiyahu (no 'ch', but u should see those nurses faces when they want to call him in

).
anyway, they either learn to pronaounce, or the name evolves into a nickname that is acceptable. my son is very happy w/ his name and would not appreciate having an english one. (my mom did the same for all her kids, and none of us ever felt the need for an english name.))even my sis who is off the derech uses her given-hebrew-name.

if mohamed can be called mohammed, why does simcha have to be called simon?

and if you really want to give an english name, it doesnt have to be connected to the hebrew one, just choose a name u like and give that.

Tiferet

Mon, Mar 19 2007, 6:18 pm

Why do you need a secular name? To this day my husband and I are saving up the large sum of money it's going to cost us to legally change our names. We both have legal English names (which we NEVER use) and it's just annoying to have to be called by these other names that is not us. We have a Simcha in our family and most people pronounce it Simka (which is also not perfect, but we all just laugh about it :-) Hatzlacha and b'shaah tova!

twinkltoes

Tue, Aug 28 2007, 7:03 am

I never gave a thought to these double namings when I lived in the U.S. It didn't seem bizarre to me. Now it does. It wasn't until I came to Israel and had kids that it REALLY bothered me. Like someone here said, if Americans can call Muhammad Muhammad then why can't they learn to call Simcha Simcha? What are you ashamed of?

Is the Heb./Eng. double naming thing a Jewish phenomenon, I wonder? I don't get a sense that the Iraqi American community are ditching their Iraqi names, or the Afghans or the Vietnamese or the East Indians. If the average American can learn how to say Deepak Chopra why not Simcha?

When my girls were born, my husband wanted to go for names that worked well in English or Hebrew - Elizabeth, Rachel, Danny, etc. - "in case they ever want to move to America". BARF! NO WAY! IF my kids ever moved out of Israel, I WANT them to be stuck with a name that will make life hard for them and make them feel different and out of place and remind them of where they should be.

amother

Tue, Aug 28 2007, 7:55 am

Avigaylis, that's what we thought also. Even when my parents came to visit us and gave us the whole - "they need a secular name to fit into society" talk (we were living in Israel at the time, but planning on coming back to the US), we were steadfast in our desire to give our kid a frummie name. Thus, we named him Yitzchak. We still LOVE the name Yitzchak and it's totally our ds - laughs and laughs and makes others laugh, BUT, no one can pronounce his name. DH works in a lab where most of his coworkers are Chinese. He felt, if they can be named their names, Yitzchak can be named his. BUT it's a very hard name that almost no non-frummies can pronounce, and that includes his grandparents and most of our families. Forget the people on the street or in the doctors offices, etc. So, I say "Yitzi, like the itsy bitsy spider with a Y". But, it's hard. I'm still in favor of giving only one frum name. But, We'll give an easier one next time. No more tzaddis, no more chets.

twinkltoes

Tue, Aug 28 2007, 8:08 am

Yes, I also had to take my parents' ability to pronounce the name into account so avoided chets. Even so, I'm sure my dad thinks my kids have the weirdest names....lol

My DD10 is Tehilla and the little one is Yardena. For U.S. people, I tell them Tehilla rhymes with tequilla! Most people just shorten it to Tilly Sad

Ruchel

Tue, Jun 26 2012, 2:22 pm

I recently talked to a cousin of dh who is BH a scholar, and he told me in Italy (and probably other places) the custom is to give a secular name and use the Jewish name for religious reasons... and more than that: many places don't have the custom of any Jewish name for girl, so you give whatever you want and it's also on the ketuba. He gave the example of a chief rabbi's wife, dd of a rabbi, who has only a secular name and her grandchildren are named for her like that.
Yekkes very often you discover their Jewish name under the chupa, too.

I'm adding this here as I can't find the thread where I was asked to find out...

b from nj

Mon, Jul 02 2012, 8:23 am

How about just S as a middle name. my DS's middle name is Baruch & since we couldn't agree on an English middle name starting with a /b/ we opted to call him Samuel B. which we thought had a nice ring to it & down the road he can choose his own middle name if he so desires!!!

morah

Mon, Jul 02 2012, 9:01 am

I know it's an old thread, but I have to say that the comparisons with other cultures/nationalities is actually very inaccurate. The VAST majority of foreign non-Jews I've interacted with (like upwards of 80%) DO use American names as opposed to their given ethnic names.