With respect, I'm confused

amother

Molasses

Thu, Aug 03 2023, 10:23 am

My son’s middle name is Ariel.

We had to name after: Aharon, Avraham, two Shlomos and Aryeh, and my son was born in Av, when we remember the Beis Hamikdash.

Ariel is the Beis Hamikdash (built by Shlomo) and starts with the same letter as the others. By using that we were able to indirectly name after everyone. It’s good enough for our family in terms of remembering ancestors’ names, and our rav said we could, so that was good enough for us.

amother

Buttercup

Thu, Aug 03 2023, 12:43 pm

amother Chartreuse wrote:

I agree that just using the first letter serves no point (unless it's kubbid av v'aim and it would make your parents happy.)

But regarding naming a translation: someone I know well had a girl, who they wanted to name after a deceased grandmother. The grandmother was a yekkish Jew. They had a picture of her grave. It said Edel. They didn't know if the name was Ettel or Aidel.

So they sent the question to a choshuv Rav who hailed from the same location as this grandmother.
His response was, "the name is Aidel and you can name her Adina. "

In the end, they named the child Aidel. But this was a clear psak that one may use a translation.

I have a grandmother who was named Faiga. My husband and I only like to use names from the Torah and definitly no Yiddish names If I have a girl, I would name her Tzippora. In all probability, faiga was translated from TzIpora.

PSA: If the name is Faigel, it was probably translated from Tzipora. If the name is Faiga, it may very well have come from fig (פייג) not bird. This is a common misconception.