Tanachi names that...

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:41 am

My DH tends to veto a lot of girls' names if the original holder of that name had a difficult life or was not a nice person.

Tamar and Dina are out because they were raped.
Esther is out because she was forcibly married to a non-Jewish king.
Rochel is out because she went through infertility and then died in childbirth (we can't use Sarah, Rivka, or Chana anyway but they'd be out for the same reason).
Leah is out because she was "hated."
Penina is out.
Batsheva is out.

I don't like Yocheved or Chava or Naomi or Michal, and we can't use Miriam or Rus.

We can agree on Devora, Elisheva, Tzipora, and there have got to be more. Who am I missing?

Please note: of course the people listed above were righteous women, he's not disputing that and neither am I. But just as we don't name after a relative who died young or had a difficult life or wasn't frum without changing or adding to the name, he doesn't want the misfortunes of women in Tanach to reflect upon our children's neshamos. And none of this is set in stone anyway, I am just looking for suggestions to give him that won't be met with "but ___ happened to her!"

amother

Mint

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:45 am

Yael, Noa, Tirtza, Avigayil, Yehudis, Shifra, Puah

Aetrsnrady

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:46 am

Avigayil?

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:50 am

amother wrote:

Yael, Noa, Tirtza, Avigayil, Yehudis, Shifra, Puah

I forgot about Bnos Tzelofchad! Thank you. And Shifra too. Also, I forgot to mention that we have relatives who aren't frum so I'd prefer not something like Avigayil as they'd just turn it into "Abigail." Who was Yehudis in Tanach? I only remember Esav's wife.

amother

Mint

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:51 am

amother wrote:

The Chanukah heroine I think from the holofernes and the cheese story.

As an aside, one of my closest friends is a BT and her oldest is Avigayil. She is called that by all her mother’s family members. No one ever tries to call her Abigail.

3mitzvos

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:58 am

Batya

amother

Mint

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 4:59 am

Also Batya/Basya who was zochah to save and nurture Moshe Rabbeinu

Adina was apparently the wife of Levi

And Asnas/Asnat was the wife of Yosef

Also Serach since I’m already getting out there- Serach bas Asher

I’ll avoid suggesting oholivamah and machlah.

Iymnok

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 5:08 am

There were two Tamars. The daughter-in-law of Yehuda who was not raped. She was the first eim hamalchus, her son Peretz began the line to Boaz, to Dovid.
The other Tamar I think was raped in the time of Dovid.

Before nixing a name, he really should learn up what Chazal say about it.
You can say they were barren, or you could say that Hashem performed nisim through them. Look at what we as a nation have gained from Chana because she was barren.

chicco

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 5:10 am

I totally respect your choice to use names that you feel comfortable with, whatever the reasoning behind it may be. If I may, I just want to point out that almost no one in tanach, including your "approved" names had an easy simple life.

A name isn't a life sentence. It's an opportunity to give over qualities or brachos to your child.

I would suggest maybe considering people who rose to the ocassion despite the adversity they faced. People with amazing kochos and the will to cling to Hashem even in ridiculously difficult circumstances. People whose names imply good things. And then when you choose the name invest your baby with the positive qualities and traits by having those in mind, rather than the side notes of their lives.

Hatzlacha and bshaa tova.

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 5:11 am

Oh, I forgot we can't use Batya either.

Adina was the wife of Levi? I didn't know that.

And I think the others are a little too "out there" for us. It's hard because I want something that is not super common but also not outlandish/rare, and while we are not against non-Tanachi names we'd like to start there if we can.

Edit: that was a response to amother mint. Going to read other responses now.

weasley

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 5:19 am

Adina was the mother of Rochel and Leah.

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 5:22 am

Iymnok wrote:

Like I said, we can't use Chana anyway. But Rochel, for example, nearly everyone I know with that name has had infertility and/or difficulty in childbirth, two of them literally nearly died, and one of them mentioned that she connected with Rochel Imenu that way. That scares me, but all it means is I probably wouldn't use it by itself.

And again, we may yet use some of the "vetoed" names I've mentioned here. It all depends on timing, ruach hakodesh, what our rav says, what we combine it with, etc.

All I'm looking for is new ideas that we haven't thought of, for women in Tanach who were not known for sad things. Personally, when I think of Batsheva, the first thing I think of is what happened to her when Dovid saw her. And the first thing I think of when I think of Esther is that she had a really hard life and had to completely sacrifice herself in the worst way possible. Yet I'd use Batsheva Esther after Rebbetzin Kanievsky (well, I probably wouldn't as it doesn't have some other things we are looking for in a name, but that's too hard to explain). I'm just looking for new ideas that I may not have thought of yet, and the examples I gave of what not to suggest were not meant to completely throw them out.

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 5:34 am

chicco wrote:

Your first paragraph is a really good point, actually, that none of them had an easy life. I was looking at the list again and thinking, "Tzipora? A giyores, who was married to the godol hador, and had to separate from him?" But it's probably going to be used in the future, he's really partial to it. I still want other options though.

Ruchel

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:15 am

Most major Tanachi people had "things". Your husband needs to see that even Rashi used Rahel, Miriam and Yoheved for his daughters and get a grip.

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:16 am

Ruchel wrote:

Most major Tanachi people had "things". Your husband needs to see that even Rashi used Rahel, Miriam and Yoheved for his daughters and get a grip.

Not nice or helpful.

amother

Smokey

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:26 am

If it helps, anecdotal: My name is Rochel and ברוך ה׳ I've never had fertility problems bli ayin hara! And I hope I live a long and wonderful life!
(Unless you call nursing clean a fertility problem.)
My first baby was born 10 months after my chasunah.

My friend Chana became expecting even when on BC, and her kids are very close in age, bli ayin hara!

My classmates who weren't able to conceive for a few years were not Sarah, Rivkah, Rochel, Chana, etc. (They had other names- of non-barren people!)

I understand your husband to a certain point, but he's really limiting names.

You can name after a person with that name (e.g. A recent Rebbetzin or relative named Sarah, Rochel...) and that's not the same as naming after the person in Tanach. The Kavana you have at the naming is the namesake. (So at this point, most of my kids are named names that are family names-e.g. Grandparent's- but BC my husband is afraid of hashpaah of the name- let's say the person had a hard life, when he names the baby, he has Kavana not for that namesake. So the kids get the Bubby/zaidy's name, but not because they're named after them... was that coherent?)

shevi82

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:27 am

Elisheva the wife Aharon. She is the mother of the kohanim.
on the other hand her sons died..
Most people in this world go through hardships. The middos and maasim tovim of the person are what is important.

amother

Smokey

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:30 am

If your husband ever learned the meforshim about Yael (it's probably also in the Gemara because my husband knew it)- he will nix the name.

amother

Smokey

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:39 am

Devorah? Her husband was barak, but she uplifted him...

Chuldah? 😊 We know so little about her that we don't know of her hardships!

Thought of Tzila for fun, her husband adored her 😊 But it seems from Rashi her BC failed...

Yehudis is not tanachi

amother

Blonde

Tue, Mar 13 2018, 6:41 am

amother wrote:

Hi, Rochel Smile

Yes, that was coherent. Thank you. That's what I tried to explain above, about how we'd use Batsheva Esther, but not just Batsheva or Esther.

And he's not limiting names, or at least not terribly so. There just seem to be so few female names in Tanach already that I was wondering if anyone had any new ideas to add to the ones I've said that we like such as Tzipora and Devora. And there are some new ideas here. Shifra, Avigayil, Tirtza were not on our list before, and I think I'm really going to push Shifra.

Lastly, we'd use non-Tanachi names too. Nechama, Tzirel, Liba, Shoshana/Raizel, Tova, Chaya are up for consideration too. I just really wanted to know if I was missing out on some obvious Tanach person who I'd forgotten about.

amother wrote:

If your husband ever learned the meforshim about Yael (it's probably also in the Gemara because my husband knew it)- he will nix the name.

Yael is out, yes. I must have neglected to mention that one.

amother wrote:

Devorah is on our list.

Yehudis is tanachi, it's just the wife of Esav, so I wouldn't name after her, although Yehudis is still under consideration for the Yehudis from the Chanukah story.

Tzila might be an option, although I don't know much about her. I don't remember that Rashi.

The other problem I'm realizing is I just don't like the sound of certain names, nothing to do with the characters and no offense to anyone with those names. I'd prefer long, flowy, feminine-sounding names, mostly ending in -a. Devora, Elisheva, Shifra, are names I like better than Tamar or Yael, even if they weren't already nixed.