For the article on Jewish given and last names, see Jewish name. For Hebrew surnames, see Hebraization of surnames

Hebraization of surnames

The Hebraization of surnames is the process of adopting Hebrew family names ....

.

Hebrew names are name

Name

A name is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name...

s that have a Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 origin, classically from the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

. They are mostly used by people living in Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 or Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 parts of the world, but some are also adapted to the Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic world, particularly if a Hebrew name is mentioned in the Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. When Hebrew-speaking Muslims give names, they do not use specifically Christian or Jewish names. A typical Hebrew name can have many different forms, having been adapted to the phonologies

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 of many different language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s. An integral facet of the Jewish religion worldwide is to give a Hebrew name to a child that is used religiously throughout his or her lifetime.

Not all Hebrew names are strictly Hebrew in origin; some names may have been borrowed from other languages since ancient times

Ancient history

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

, including from Egyptian

Egyptian language

Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...

, Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...

, Phoenician, Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

Names of Hebrew origin

Hebrew names used by Jews (along with many Hebrew names used in Christendom

Christendom

Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...

) often come from the Jewish Tanakh

Tanakh

The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...

, which contains the Torah: The Five Books of Moses, which are also the first five books in the Christian Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

, along with two other collections of books, Nevi'im

Nevi'im

Nevi'im is the second of the three major sections in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. It falls between the Torah and Ketuvim .Nevi'im is traditionally divided into two parts:...

: The Prophets, and Kethuvim

Ketuvim

Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm in actual Biblical Hebrew is the third and final section of the Tanak , after Torah and Nevi'im . In English translations of the Hebrew Bible, this section is usually entitled "Writings" or "Hagiographa"...

: The Writings.

Many of these names are thought to have been adapted from Hebrew phrases and expressions, bestowing special meaning or the unique circumstances of birth to the one who receives that name. An example of a name with a special personal meaning is יהודה Yəhûḏāh

Judah (Biblical figure)

Judah was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah. Biblical scholars, such as J. A...

 (Judah). An example of a name indicating circumstances of birth is ראובן Rəʼûḇēn

Reuben (Bible)

According to the Book of Genesis, Reuben or Re'uven was the first and eldest son of Jacob with Leah. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Reuben.-Etymology:...

 (Reuben), which means "Look, a son."

Hebrew devotion to Elohim

Elohim

Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or...

 (God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

) is often indicated by adding the suffix אל -el/-al, forming names such as מיכאל Michael

Michael

Michael is a given name that comes from the , derived from the Hebrew question מי כמו אלוהים? meaning "Who is like God?" In English, it is sometimes shortened to Mike, Mikey, or, especially in Ireland, Mick...

 and גבריאל Gabriel

Gabriel

In Abrahamic religions, Gabriel is an Archangel who typically serves as a messenger to humans from God.He first appears in the Book of Daniel, delivering explanations of Daniel's visions. In the Gospel of Luke Gabriel foretells the births of both John the Baptist and of Jesus...

.

Hebrew devotion to God is often indicated by adding an abbreviated form of the Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton

The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...

 as a suffix; the most common abbreviations used by Jews are יה -yāh/-iyyāh and יהו -yāhû/-iyyāhû/-ayhû, forming names such as ישׁעיהו Yəšaʻªyāhû

Isaiah

Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

 (Isaiah), צדקיהו Ṣiḏqiyyāhû

Zedekiah

Zedekiah or Tzidkiyahu was the last king of Judah before the destruction of the kingdom by Babylon. He was installed as king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, after a siege of Jerusalem to succeed his nephew, Jeconiah, who was overthrown as king after a reign of only three months and...

 (Zedekiah) and שׂריה Śərāyāh

Seraiah

Seraiah or Sraya is the name of several people mentioned in the Hebrew Bible:# The father of Joab ....

 (Seraiah). Most of Christendom uses the shorter suffix preferred in translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

s of the Bible to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an languages, primarily Greek -ιας -ias and English -iah

Jah

Jah is the shortened form of the divine name YHWH , an anglicized version of the Tetragrammaton . The name is most commonly associated with the Rastafari movement or within the word hallelujah, although Christian groups may use the name to varying degrees. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses use a...

, producing names such as Τωβιας Tōbias

Tobias

Tobias is a Greek version of the Hebrew biblical name "Toviyah" , meaning "Yahweh is good". It is a popular male given name in Germany, Scandinavia, the United States and amongst Jewish people. In English-speaking countries it is often shortened to Toby. Other diminutives are Tobi , Tobsen and...

 (Tobias, Toby) and Ιερεμίας Ieremias (Jeremiah, Jeremy).

In addition to devotion to Elohim and YHWH, names could also be sentences of praise in their own right. The name טוביהו
Ṭôḇiyyāhû means "Good of/is the LORD."

Frug-(Fróg)-פרוג -Фруг Serug (Hebrew: שְׂרוּג, S'rugh ; "branch") was the son of Reu and the father of Nahor, according to Genesis 11:20-23. He is also the great-grandfather of Abraham.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view_page.jsp?artid=432&letter=F&pid=0
However, Frug'surname recorded by the open"u" and closed "ó" Frug's-(Fróg) - פרוג-Фруг. there is no equivalent either in German or Polish, so it is purely and exclusively jewish.

Names of Aramaic origin

At the end of the First Temple Period, the Kingdom of Judah

Kingdom of Judah

The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....

 was destroyed, and its inhabitants were taken into captivity in Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

. While they were there, the Jews ceased to speak Hebrew as their daily language, and adopted Aramaic instead. Judæo-Aramaic was the vernacular language at the time of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

, and was also the language used to write parts of the Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

, the Book of Ezra

Book of Ezra

The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era...

, and the entire Jewish Babylonian Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

. Aramaic remained the lingua franca

Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...

 of the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 until the time of Islam.

Judæo-Aramaic names include עבד־נגו ʻĂḇēḏ-nəḡô, בר־תלמי Bar-Talmay

Bartholomew

Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, and is usually identified as Nathaniel . He was introduced to Christ through St. Philip, another of the twelve apostles as per , where the name Nathaniel first appears. He is also mentioned as “Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee” in...

 and תום Tôm

Thomas (name)

Thomas is a masculine given name. It is based on the Biblical Greek , which is itself a transcription of the Aramaic "twin", the Hebrew cognate being...

, as well as Bar Kochba.

Hebrew-Greek names

Due to the Hellenisation

Hellenization

Hellenization is a term used to describe the spread of ancient Greek culture, and, to a lesser extent, language. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization during the Hellenistic period following the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon...

 of the Eastern Mediterranean and the movement of Jews around the area, many names were adapted to Greek, reinforced by the translation of the Tanakh in the Septuagint with many Hellenized names.

Many of the names in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 are of Hebrew and Aramaic origin, but were adapted to the Greek by Hellenistic Christian writers such as Paul of Tarsus

Paul of Tarsus

Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...

.

Such Hebræo-Greek names include Ιησους Iēsous

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 (originally from ישׁוע Yēšûªʻ), Νωη Nōē

Noah

Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...

 (originally from נח Nōªḥ), Ισαιας Isaias

Isaiah

Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

 (originally from ישׁעיהו Yəšaʻªyāhû), Ισραήλ Israēl

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 (originally from ישראל Yiśrā’ēl which can mean "person (mind) seeing God. Emmanuēl (originally from Hebrew עִמָּנוּאֵל ʻImmānûʼēl "God [is] with us" or Greek Εμοί εν Ηλ(ί) or εν εμοί ο Ήλιος or within me is God.

Also, some Jews of the time had Greek Gentile

Gentile

The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....

 names themselves, such as the Christian Luke

Luke

Luke is a male given name, and less commonly, a surname.The name Luke is derived from the Latin name , from an Ancient Greek , meaning "man from Lucania". The earliest known recording of the name is from the Bible, The Gospel of Luke, which was written around AD 70 to 90, and it is from here...

 (Greek Λουκας Loukas). Though used by some Jews at the time, these names are generally not associated with Jews today, and are considered characteristically Greek and largely confined to use by Christians. Hebrew forms of the names exist, but they are extremely rare.

Hebræo-Latin names

Many Hebrew names were adapted into Latin, but mostly through Greek, as Greek was the language of the first Christian Septuagint. Such names include Jesus (from Greek Ιησους Iēsous) and Maria (from Greek Μαριαμ Mariam, originally from Hebrew מרים Miryām).

Also, some Jews during Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 times also had Latin names for themselves, such as the Christian apostle Mark

Mark the Evangelist

Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

 (Latin Marcus

Marcus

Marcus, Markus, or Márkus is a common given name and a family name. See Marcus .Marcus may also refer to:In places* Marcus, Iowa, United States* Marcus, Washington, United States...

). As was the case with contemporary Jewish names of Greek origin, most of these Latin names are generally not associated with Jews today, and today retain a Roman and Christian character.

Hebræo-Arabic names

Hebrew Šəmûʼēl (Samuel), famous for his fidelity to his friends (the proverb says "more faithful than Samawʼal".)

With the rise of Islam and the establishment of an Arab Caliphate

Caliphate

The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...

, the Arabic language

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 became the lingua franca of the Middle East and some parts of Berber

Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

 North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

. Islamic scripture such as the Qurʼan, however, contains many names of Hebrew origin (often via Aramaic), and there were Jewish and Christian minorities

Minority group

A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...

 living under Arab Islamic rule. As such, many Hebrew names had been adapted to Arabic, and could be found in the Arab world. Jews and Christians generally used the Arabic adaptions of these names, just as in the present English-speaking Jews (and sometimes Muslims) often use Anglicized versions (Joshua rather than Yəhôšúªʼ, for instance.)

While most such names are common to traditional Arabic translations of the Bible, a few differ; for instance, Arabic-speaking Christians use Yasūʻ instead of ʻĪsā for "Jesus".

Such Hebræo-Arabic names include:
(Eve)

The influence of Aramaic is observable in several names, notably ʼIsḥāq (Isaac), where the Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

 form is simply Îsḥāq, contrasting with more Hebraic forms such as Yaʻqūb (Jacob).

Some of these Arabic names preserve original Hebrew pronunciations that were later changed by regular sound shifts; thus Maryam corresponds to the form recorded by classical authors, whereas the second i in Miriam is the result of a later sound change (also observable in words such as migdal, recorded in the New Testament as Magdalene and in Palestinian Arabic as Majdala) which turned a in unstressed closed syllables into i.

Typically, Hebrew אל -ʼēl was adapted as ـايل -īl, and Hebrew יה -yāh as ـيا -yāʼ.

Hebræo-English names

James I of England

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

 commissioned a translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

 of the Tanakh from Hebrew to English, which became the Old Testament component of the new King James Version of the Bible

King James Version of the Bible

The Authorized Version, commonly known as the King James Version, King James Bible or KJV, is an English translation of the Christian Bible by the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611...

, or "KJV" Bible. The promotion of the KJV translation spawned a whole new variety of Hebrew names that were considerably closer to the Hebrew language than their Latin counterparts. Examples include Asshur from אשור ʼAššûr instead of Ασσυρια Assyria, and Shem from שם Šēm instead of Σημ Sēm.

Even so, many KJV Old Testament names were not entirely without New Testament Greek influence. This influence mostly reflected the vowels of names, leaving most of the consonants largely intact, only modestly filtered to consonants of contemporary English phonology. However, all KJV names followed the Greek convention of not distinguishing between soft and dāḡeš forms of ב bêṯ, ג gîmel and ד dāleṯ, as well as merging ג gîmel and ע ġáyin. These habits resulted in multilingually fused Hebræo-Helleno-English names, such as Judah

Judah (Biblical figure)

Judah was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah. Biblical scholars, such as J. A...

, Isaiah

Isaiah

Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...

 and Jeremiah. Additionally, a handful of names were adapted directly from Greek without even partial translations from Hebrew, including names such as Isaac

Isaac

Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...

, Moses

Moses

Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

 and Jesse

Jesse

Jesse, Eshai or Yishai, is the father of the David, who became the king of the Israelites. His son David is sometimes called simply "Son of Jesse" ....

.

Along with names from the KJV edition of the New Testament, these names constitute the large part of Hebrew names as they exist in the English-speaking world.

External links

• List of Hebrew names at Wiktionary
• Customs relating to the naming of a child from the Chabad sect of Hassidic Ultra-Orthodox Judaism - article on old testament naming from a Catholic perspective
• List of over 2500 Hebrew names used in Israel with pronunciation
• List of all first names used in Israel with pronunciation and statistics in Hebrew
• A list of all modern Hebrew names and their meaning