How do you feel about your name? Common vs unique

amother

Coffee

Sun, May 31 2020, 1:55 pm

amother [ Crimson ] wrote:

I love my name.
Malka. or Malkie
It's common but not common enough that there was always other Malkies. Its hard to mispronounce in any society. And I absolutely love the meaning of it. It always made me feel proud.

My coworker is Malki, she gets called Milky.

amother

Burlywood

Sun, May 31 2020, 1:57 pm

amother [ Coffee ] wrote:

My coworker is Malki, she gets called Milky.

Isn't there a name Milkah?

BH Yom Yom

Sun, May 31 2020, 4:27 pm

amother [ Burlywood ] wrote:

Isn't there a name Milkah?

Yes, there was a Milkah in Avraham Avinu’s family, and one of the Bnos Tzlafchad was named Milkah.

amother

Ginger

Sun, May 31 2020, 4:38 pm

saw50st8 wrote:

I have a fairly regular name (Shira) and I always hated it. There was always another Shira in my class. Now, no one can actually pronounce it in corporate America so that's annoying too.

So interesting! My name is Shira also, but I find that ironically the non-Jewish world has an *easier* time pronouncing it than they do pronouncing my English/legal name (which is not actually English, it’s Russian, and leads people to assume I am from Russia and speak Russian, even though I’m not and I don’t...has led to some interesting conversations where someone assumes I am Russian, starts speaking rapid-fire Russian at me, and when I try to explain that I don’t speak it, they say “what do you mean?! your name is X, of course you must be Russian!” Um no, my parents just picked that name, which no one aside from Russian people seems to be able to pronounce lol.) So Shira is easier (and I like it, especially in contrast to my legal name).

Of course, then R’ Chaim Kanievsky’s position on the name Shira became well-known, so there’s that, and I started getting a lot of pressure from well-meaning people in the community to change my name to Shifra, Sara, etc.

I have a very unusual middle Hebrew name which is actually a male name with a ה tacked on at the end. Not a fan.

I like my middle English name though, except it’s spelled unusually and computer systems have a hard time not mixing up the first 2 letters. My voter application consistently has my middle name spelled wrong because of this, and yes I’ve tried to correct it. Banging head

amother

Coffee

Sun, May 31 2020, 5:00 pm

amother [ Burlywood ] wrote:

Isn't there a name Milkah?

Yes, but her name is Malki.

amother

Goldenrod

Sun, Jun 07 2020, 5:57 pm

My cousin is Gittel (yiddish) but she is called Gitta. No idea how common it is in most circles, never hear it in my MO circle.

She tells me that whenever she tells her name to an Indian person, they get excited because they have a religious book called The Geeta and it is considered a holy indian girls name.

I always find that funny - - - same name, one yiddish, one indian!

My name is biblical but not Imahot - I like the easiness of it without being too typical.

amother

Smokey

Sun, Jun 07 2020, 6:26 pm

I love my name, Hadassah. It was probably middle of the way when it came to popularity when I was growing up. There was one Hadassah in every year group I think. But not overly common and I love the sound of it Smile

amother

Smokey

Sun, Jun 07 2020, 6:29 pm

I love the names, yael, Avital, Avigail, Sari, Aliza, Aviva.

amother

Amber

Sun, Jun 07 2020, 6:38 pm

Super common name here. There were 8 more in my class of 25-30 growing up. Never bothered me.