Reply To: Giving Your Child an English Name

Home Forums Decaffeinated Coffee Giving Your Child an English Name Reply To: Giving Your Child an English Name

#1071394
akuperma
Participant

Define “English”? Is “Mosheh” an English name, it is written in the Roman alphabet as pronounced in the English speaking countries, and represents a systematic romanization of the Hebrew. Given that the Roman alphabet, and English in particular, are used for most communciations, everyone ends up with a romanized version of their real name, in this case, ???. Like it or not, in the 21st century ones needs a consistent way to express one’s name in the Roman alphabet, and in most countries, that means the English-version (e.g. with ? romanized as a “sh” rather than “sch” or “ch” or whatever).

For someone named ???? do you mean a name such as Yaakov (a romanized form), or perhaps Jacob or James or Jim or Jacques, etc. All those are translations of the Hebrew original – as opposed to picking a popular name that is merely similar to the Hebrew (e.g. all those Morrises, Seymours, Myrons, etc.).

Having only a romanized version of the real name is a clear statement of who you are. If the child should go off the derekh or get adopted/kidnapped, any time they research their birth name, they will realize they came from a traditional Jewish background.

edited