baby boy naming- help!

amother

Sun, Oct 26 2014, 10:26 pm

Ruchel wrote:

That said I heard Kalev being "voice of heart" or "all heart", but no idea if grammatically correct.

voice of the heart would be spelled with a kuf-cholam, not a kaf-kamatz. though there is a choir called Kolot Halev meaning voices of the heart.
I've seen interpretations that it means faithful, the way a dog is known for its faithfulness, like the name Fido often given to family dogs. But there's no real proof other than I couldn't find any hebrew word with the root kaf-lamed-bet that didn't connect to canines in some way. Kalev as the hebrew original of Fido is a little jarring. I prefer to believe that the true meaning of the name kalev has been lost, maybe because it was from another ancient mesopotamian language, or that Kalev means faithful and the word for dog is kelev because this species is known to be faithful. iow the dog named for the character trait used as a human name, rather than the person named for the dog. Implausible, though, because there's no modern Hebrew word with a kaf-lamed-bet root that has anything to do with faithfulness. They almost all have negative meanings.

I've recently heard of naming a son Lev, not as in the Russian Lyev, but just plain Lev, as in "heart". easy to say (unless you're Japanese), easy to spell, nice meaning.and if they have Japanese friends, "Rev" sounds like short for Reverend, which might be an affectionate nickname for a kid who you just know is going to become a rabbi.

amother

Mon, Oct 27 2014, 3:25 am

amother wrote:

OP here, just found this name while surfing the internet:

Dael | דָעאֵל
Meaning: Knowledge of God
Gender: Male
Origin: Hebrew

I think it sounds really nice.
Has anyone heard of it before? is it a name that is actually used by Jews?

Met the first (tiny) Dael recently - had never heard of it before - people may have probs knowing how to pronounce it though...

How about Bentzi?

amother

Mon, Oct 27 2014, 5:08 am

I didn't read through everyone's posts, but I did notice that many people wrote Eli. This may be good for you! My father's name is Eliyahu, but he's not frum and goes by Eli (actually, with the E as an E and not as an Eh), so it can totally be done in the secular world as well. And it's a very nice name!

aquarius1

Wed, Oct 29 2014, 6:03 pm

Sounds like you both like the name Daniel (besides for the fact that it's popular in your family). It's a beautiful name and u can call him by the nickname Doni or Dani. I personally love the names Ariel and Asher. Good luck Smile

whatever u decide I'm sure will be great!