Nme | Imamother

amother

Silver

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 12:02 am

My DD has a classmate named Temima. She is super smart, poised, articulate, liked by the children, and a mench. (She is beautiful too)
May your DD be so he to be all those things.

Teomima

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 4:12 am

This thread caught my eye because at first I thought it was titled my username LOL

In Hebrew it technically means naive but also, casually, simpleton. So it's not a great name in Hebrew speaking environments. It's a shame it has that dual meaning because if it only meant 'pure', it would be a really lovely name.

Elfrida

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 4:32 am

I knew a pair of twins named Tehilla and Temima. Not the best combination. I suppose the parents thought it would be nice for them to have similar sounding names but it stopped being cute by the time they were about five.

Individually, both lovely names.

etky

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 5:08 am

It's a nice name and I think it works in purely religious milieus because people intuitively associate it with the pasuk Torah hashem temima and understand it means whole and pure.
So it would probably work nicely out of Israel cause non-Jews and secular, non-Hebrew speaking Jews have no idea of the meaning in any case whereas religious Jews understand the meaning.
Where Hebrew is spoken - in a society that doesn't have that association - it's more complicated.

amother

Babyblue

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 7:00 am

It works in a charedi setting, where the current Hebrew meaning of the name seems not to matter as much. I do know a few non charedi women in Israel who go by Temi but are actually named Temima.

amother

Lime

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 7:08 am

As others said, in a non-Israeli haredi setting, it works.

In Israel, if she weren't in a haredi setting, kids would likely make fun of her. It's similar to naive/gullible in meaning. אל תהיה תמים

I actually don't know if it would even work in a haredi setting in Israel, maybe those who live in those circles can chime in. I know in my circles it wouldn't work. I also wonder, how would it be pronounced exactly? The Hebrew is almost T'mima, not Temima.

salt

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 7:16 am

amother [ Lime ] wrote:

It would be with the emphasis on the middle -mi-
ie. Te-MI-ma or T'MI-ma

Like rhyming with Yemima.

So it doesn't exactly sound like תמימה in modern Hebrew, cos that would have the emphasis on the last syllable.

I think it would go down ok. It's like the name Tova - you don't get people confusing it with the hebrew word טובה.
Like you wouldn't get Israeli kids making fun and saying "טובה, תעשי לי טובה" - "Tova do me a favor". Because the emphasis on the other part of the word makes it into a name and not a word.
So I think it's ok.

etky

Sun, Jan 17 2021, 8:11 am

salt wrote:

Even so, it might be a problem when people who've never encountered the word as a name read it and pronounce it as the adjective that they know. Yemima is a name that, though pretty rare, most people have heard of as in Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi or the famous kids' song הבובה ימימה. Temima is really not heard outside of religious circles.